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Photographs courtesy of Yoyo Maeght
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When poet (and then–French Minister of Culture) André Malraux served as master of ceremonies for the dedication of Fondation Maeght in the summer of 1964, he noted in his speech that ceci n’est pas une musée—this is not a museum. Located in St. Paul de Vence, outside of Cannes, the Fondation Maeght was the first institution in France dedicated to Modernist art. It was also designed by the artists whose work it would hold: Georges Braque, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Alberto Giacometti, Fernand Léger, and Joan Miró, to name a few. In other words, it broke the mold.
The Fondation was created by one of the most influential art dealers of the 20th century, Aimé Maeght. Trained as a lithographer, Maeght began his career as an art dealer in Cannes during World War II, when his young wife, Marguerite, managed to get an especially great price on a painting hanging on the wall of their shop. The painter, Pierre Bonnard, became the Maeghts’ first artist; he introduced Maeght to his friend Henri Matisse. After the war, the couple relocated their gallery to Paris, where they expanded their roster to include Braque, Calder, Chagall and other Modernist icons. Because many gallerists had fled during the war, it was easier to find a niche in the Paris gallery scene, but that wasn’t what allowed Galerie Maeght to thrive. Those who knew them point to the familial and unconditionally supportive relationship they maintained with their artists. Maeght also embraced multimedia—in this case, poets and artists collaborating on beautiful, limited-edition art books—long before it was the norm.
Yoyo Maeght, Aimé and Marguerite’s granddaughter, spent her childhood with some of the biggest names in 20th century art (she credits Miró with teaching her to really “see”). As part of what’s been called the “first family” of Modernist art, she has managed the family’s art press, Maeght Editions, and helped oversee both the gallery and the foundation.
Maeght made her first visit to St. Louis in April, when she traveled here to attend the Contemporary’s 5th Anniversary Gala honoring Tom Friedman and the late Ernest Trova. (Listen to staff writer Jeannette Cooperman’s interview, Trova’s last ever, here.)
Maeght was gracious enough to sit down with us for an interview in the Contemporary’s courtyard the day before the gala. The forecast had threatened a rainout, but it instead turned out to be one of those perfect Midwestern spring days. Here’s part of the conversation she had with Culture editor Stefene Russell, which was filmed by local cinema collective Film Neshui; look for clips from that footage early next week.
I have a funny question to start with—I wanted to ask you how you pronounce your last name, because I’ve heard that a lot of people mispronounce it. It’s “mag,” as in “magazine.” Very simple, like M-A-G. It’s a name from the north of France.
And not German, like some people have thought! No, no, no. [Laughs.]
I wanted to begin by talking about the recent exhibits, one at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the other at the Graphikmuseum in Münster. Both exhibits told the stories of these artists’ careers, but also of the relationship they had with your family and Fondation Maeght. When I say “my family,” it’s difficult to stop with my grandfather, grandmother, my mother and brother and sisters. The Maeght family, it’s with the artists. My grandfather became so close, so friendly, with Matisse—though first was Bonnard, in the 1930s. Then he met Matisse, Miró, Giacometti, all of them. All of these artists in fact, trusted my grandfather. Sometimes people say, “It’s so amazing that your grandfather discovered these artists, and trusted these artists.” And I say, maybe it was the artists who trusted my grandfather, because to give him work for his galleries, to create special exhibitions—they did it together. So it’s really a family.
There’s a really wonderful anecdote that illustrates that relationship, about Matisse being bedridden after surgery and creating the cutout collages that became his “Jazz” series, which was all he could do from bed. That series is now seen as groundbreaking, but was not critically well-received at the time, and your grandfather encouraged him to keep going. He gave these artists such incredible support, both personally and artistically. If you accept the mind of the artist, you trust in what he is doing. And that’s why in the case of Miró, he did many, many, many sculptures made of plaster, and also in bronze. My grandfather never chose—he took all of them. The same with Giacometti: The first exhibition by Giacometti at the gallery, Giacometti invited my grandfather to come to the studio to see the plasters. Normally the exhibition of an artist was to exhibit plasters, and just to show the technique, you could show one or two pieces made of bronze. Giacometti asked my grandfather, “Which one will show in bronze?” My grandfather said, “All of them!” And Giacometti said, “Who will have them cast?” And my grandfather said, “I will have them cast, but I want all of them for the exhibition, made of bronze.” And Giacometti said, “He is crazy!” [Laughs.]
I know that was a huge part of your grandfather’s philosophy, providing financial support to artists so that they had the resources they needed to play around and do what they needed to do. And to give to the artists the opportunity to do not what they want, but [to express] what they think about—the Fondation is a support, it’s not a museum. It was the first time that we asked the artists to participate in the conception of a museum. That’s why Miró did the labyrinth, why Braque did the window glass for the chapel, Chagall did the mosaic, Calder did some huge, special mobiles…so everything, they were involved, and brought their ideas to the project.
Your sister, Isabelle, was very close to Braque, and you had an uncle-niece relationship with Miró. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Yes, you know, Miró was somebody so quiet, so nice. And he only had one daughter. It’s very interesting to see that most artists are not very interested by the family. Many of them have no children: Bonnard, Braque, Durand Liget, Giacometti, [Max] Kaminsky…many, many of them have no children. But for us, it was different, because all of these artists, they were a little bit like our granduncle, or grandfather. Just something I am thinking about: When there was a Miró exhibition at the gallery, and my brother was 5 or 6 or something like that, and I was with him, the TV was there, and of course they arrive and ask, “Oh, oh, can we ask something of this child?” They asked my mother, and she says yes, of course. And they ask, “What do you see? Do you see birds, animals, what do you see?” And he looks at her, and he says, “I see Mirós!” It was absolutely perfect. And that’s where we are. We know that it is something created by an artist.
Miró, during the summer, he came to our house in the south of France for three or four months every year. He also had a studio in Paris, in my father’s studios. We used to see him quite a bit, and he was so nice with me, showing me not just a piece of art, but the color of the sky, the color of a flower. You know many of the sculptures by Miró were made with fresh fruits, or with bread, it’s coming from real objects. So he taught me how to look at very simple things. So today, I have no memory for names, I have no memory for things I have listened to, but I see. I am very good at that, because all these artists taught us how to look at things.
Before the interview, you were talking about how you and your siblings have an almost visceral reaction to, or relationship with, visual art, and how you have to see the art in person, not just in a book. We see so many pieces of art, and work with so many pieces of art, there are so many in our collection. So we have a physical relationship with the art, and if we know the story, if we talk about Miró—I think I know better than many, many, many people the work of Miró. The graphics, I think I know all of them. The titles, everything, everything, everything. All this scientific part, it’s my culture. But I keep my physical emotion in front of me. I can love, and I can have a trouble in front of a piece of art, and I keep that with me even if every day I see hundreds of pieces. It is because we grew up like that, to discover—we have a light in the eyes—and we continue to have that every day.
And just to take this to the other extreme, we’re talking about the problems of looking at pictures of art in books, but publishing was a huge part of your grandfather’s mission. It still is an important part of Fondation Maeght, and you managed the press for a while. In any case, I love this idea of poets collaborating with artists. It’s very important. Like I told you, my family is a community. What is an artist? An artist is somebody who knows perfectly well his culture, his story, his country, but who wants something more, something else. He doesn’t know what, but he has to find something else, to find a new culture, a new history. I think that is also what we like, is to put people to together, an architect, an artist…it’s a community. Also, the time is not important at all for us. We have time. The cost is not important to us. If you have an idea to do a book between Aragon and Chagall, at what time do you have to stop? When it is too long? But we don’t mind the cost, and we don’t mind the time. Because [when it is finished], the book is perfect. What is important to us is to give to the artist the best tools to create. But a tool can be one day an exhibition, one day an edition, one day a lecture…all of that is useful to communicate the art to the public. We have to do the right thing at the right moment.
The definition you give of an artist, your grandparents fall under that, even though the role they took was that of supporters of artists. They still had the vision. But it is not like, ”Oh, you are an artist, do exactly what you want.” It is not like that. It is what you are thinking, go further and we help you to go further. Maybe sometimes to go further is to be quiet, to do two months in a house. Or sometimes it is to have a press. We try to understand what they need before they know what they need, to create a space, but also to create an emotion and to have liberté. We still have the most important position of graphics, because we commission about 12,000 different titles of graphics, which means 600,000 prints. Of course, in 60 years, that is a lot. [Laughs.] And we have our own print shop, our own press. To bring an artist out, to get his best, is not to tell him to use 20 colors and all the complicated techniques. When Ellsworth Kelly did the first graphics for us in 1964, they were very simple, leaves and flowers, one color for the print, and absolutely perfect. So it’s not the biggest, not the most expensive, but the right one. We did something very special for Miró, we thought very tenderly of him. He never asked for anything, ever. So when you have an artist like that, you do everything for him, anything you can think about. When he was 75, my father built a special press, to do huge pieces. Did I mention he was this small guy, very old, doing the largest lithographs?
And you still have the press on the grounds of Fondation Maeght, correct? No, the one press is in our house in St. Paul, but the one for Miró, we gave to a museum for the printing press, because it is quite impossible to use it today and it is so, so, so big. And when we need to do something with an artist, we ask the museum if we can use it. [Laughs.] And in the south of France, we have a huge press also, where we can do 3-meters-long graphics, and Miró was so fond of this press that he signed it. He dedicated it, right down to the year and the date. So every year, we do a birthday, an anniversaire for the press. [Laughs.] We do a small party, with champagne.
That’s lovely! Yes.
Before we wrap up, I wanted to ask about the future of Fondation Maeght, because the history and legacy is so impressive, but it’s still a very vital and ever-changing thing… You see, when my grandfather died, it was 1981. I was living with him. So all of my friends told me, “You have to write down the story of your grandfather.” And I said, “No, I want to wait.” People say, “Why? There are memories there.” And I say, “Because I have something very important, very important, said by Braque.” Which is, is the artist 20 years early, ahead of the public, or 20 years late? So where are we? We can say, we are not the artist, but we are not the public, we are living with the artists, so we know better than the public. So when Braque said that, he means that the artist has to be early. And when my grandfather died, everybody said amazing, generous, he discovered Giacometti, Chagall, Calder…and I said, “And what about the new generation?” Like [Antoni] Tàpies, [Paul] Rebeyrolle, [Marco] Del Re? The third generation, we continue the same way, which means they are exquisite artists, we buy all of the production of the artists, and we organize exhibitions with galleries and museums.
We did that with [Gérard] Gasiorowski, who was absolutely unknown except as a unique artist to our exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. So the public will discover Gasiorowski in 30 years. I have also introduced some artists from China to Europe, like a photographer who is already becoming a star in the world, Chen Man. We exhibited Yan Pei-Ming two years ago, and now he is exhibiting at the Louvre. We are making mistakes, maybe, but you know, what does it mean to choose an artist? We choose them because we are interested by the work and love the artist, and we trust the artist. If the museum doesn’t recognize them as master artists, who made the mistake—they, or us? We don’t know. But for me, even if some artists will be unknown, I trust them and I continue to trust them. There is no possibility to say I made a mistake, not because I am perfect, but because I love them and I continue to love them.
So we will see, maybe in 20 years or in 60 years, we don’t know, we don’t mind. The time is not important. Even a Giacometti or a Chagall can be loved or hated. That’s normal, that everybody doesn’t like it. What is unique is that most of the collectors or the museums or the galleries, they used to have a style. If you look at the history of my family, the same year we did an exhibition in our gallery, Chagall, Calder, Kaminsky, Kelly, Tàpies, Matisse, nobody would do that…some people say they are so different, so strange. But we would say, Giacometti and Calder for example, we take two sculptures, so different, but who can say today why? We love them, that’s all. Also, it’s physical, but we know the artist’s story. We don’t talk about it, we are not scientific and na na na na, we have a very strong culture, you know in Lascaux, we have some of the oldest paintings in the world. So the artist’s story starts with Lascaux, up to today…we love our culture, and this culture, we try to find people who will bring the new culture.
Last…could you speak to the mission of the Fondation? When it was founded in 1964, it was the first building created to receive contemporary art in France. Before, museums were old castles, or a garden or something like that. So the first building for contemporary art in France was Fondation Maeght, designed by the artists. André Malraux, in his speech, he said, ceci n’est pas une musée. This is not a museum. And the Fondation is not a museum, even though we have a huge collection. It is a place made by a family with a choice, who don’t try to be art historians. We have more than 60 sculptures by Giacometti, more than 300 pieces by Miró, but we have no Picasso. Once people visit the Fondation, they ask, why don’t you have a Picasso? Because, they must understand that it is a choice, a choice of a collector, of a dealer, of a family, and for a national museum, they are obliged to be exhaustive. To have everything. We don’t; we choose. You can see the artist’s evolution. We want to take these artists to our Fondation to a very wide public, but it is not experimental. For that we have the gallery. There, we can bring in very new artists and we can take risks, we can sell or not sell, our business. The Fondation is a private foundation, we do not want to take risks, even if it is supported by the family. It has to be very strong by itself. So we choose some artists, sometimes the name is famous but not the work, and we bring the public in to discover exactly what this artist is.
Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght, 06570 Saint-Paul, France, ph. 33 (0)4 93 32 81 63. Hours are October 1–June 30, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., and July 1–September 30, 10 a.m.–7 p.m. Galerie Maeght Paris: 42 rue du Bac, 75007 Paris, France, ph. 01 45 48 45 15. Hours are Monday–Saturday, 9:30 a.m.–7 p.m. Galerie Maeght Barcelone: calle Montcada, 25, 08003 Barcelona, Espagne, ph. 00 34 93 310 42 45. Hours are Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–7:30 p.m. For more information, visit www.maeght.com.
