Jean Planque Collection: The Story of an Art Collector
This show of works from Jean Planque's private collection displays the collector's enthusiasm for painting. Bringing together works by some of the most important of twentieth-century artists, the exhibition reveals surprising links between pieces.
Jean Planque first discovered the art of painting in the early thirties. A series of happy coincidences led him to develop his passion for paintings while working as an advisor in Paris to Beyeler art gallery of Basle. His curiosity and enthusiasm led him to meet the most important twentieth-century artists, particularly Picasso, Giacometti and Dubuffet, who treated him as if he were one of their own.
The specificity of this collection on display at the Museu Picasso lies not only in the origin of the works by these artists but above all in the fact that it reveals a strange coherence between the pieces. The collector's passionate gaze at twentieth-century art is a gaze intent on discovering the secret of an art that for decades was striving to change the usual way of looking and to erase traditional standards of good taste. The Jean Planque collection occupied its present permanent location in 2010, when it was deposited at the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence.
Chronicle of the exhibition
