MASTER OF ANTIQUES DVD:2

10 profiles on one DVD

US$27.50 including 7-10 working days international AIRPOST delivery.

PARIS

His promotion, or rather lack of promotion, makes that everyone wants to buy a piece of jewellery by JAR.

I remember the first exhibition he had of his works, in 1977 in New York. You were given a flashlight and a catalogue and you were asked to go in a room which was semi dark because it was like a treasure hunt. And rather than having a 1000 watts lamps shinning on every jewel like you would see at a normal exhibition, you had to walk around a room, which was enough light so that you would not bump into one another, but not enough light to look at the jewels. So you had to discover, you had to search for the jewel, rather than they coming at you with huge lights.

I don't know if you have been to his shop at 7 place Vendome but you can walk past his shop 50 times without seeing anything. Because it is a shop where there is nothing in the window, doesn't even have a name. There is a nasty little bell and none of this business of here come and look at my marvellous jewels - nothing. And if they don't know you and you press the bell because you have heard about it, they say ' what do you want?' Well I would like to see some jewellery! Sorry we are a small firm, we have nothing to show you, there is nothing today. So they make it very, very difficult for you to buy.

US$2.75

PARIS

What I am trying to do, with every period is to find the modern styles throughout the ages. I try to find what was modern in 1780 or in 1750. I very much like contemporary paintings, so it taught me what was modern or what was a remake. You know remake or a revival or not original. For instance in 1750 I try to find the neoclassical but these are very rare. The neoclassical looks like an Empire piece but it has been done in 1750. What is modern in the 20th century is a Marcel Duchamp. You can recognise a master when you see all the followers.

US$2.75

NEW YORK

Furniture is being seen as something more than just an applied art, when it is at a certain level. A lot has to do with the Victorian Period when a lot of books were written and the Victorians were very much into worship. They considered Paintings real art because one can only touch them with their eyes.

US$2.75

MADRID

Why are people so interested in art? Why do museums exist? Why do certain human beings decide to concentrate their lives in only creating images? Why is it a necessity for human beings?

US$2.75

NEW YORK

In the very early 19th century, a furniture maker was left to his own resources. He might go and cut an old cherry tree, he seasoned it in oil to bring out the pattern, he built a box of pine or oak for the background and then he put the sheets of the veneer over it and then he had to sell it. No one had given him the order. That was totally new in the early 19th century.

US$2.75

LONDON

My great-grandfather had only been in business a few days and Mr. Levy walked in and asked. 'What's going on in here?', and my great grandfather replied, 'I am an antique dealer, and I have only just started and these are the things I've got'. Mr. Levy liked the things that he had and bought one or two things and they formed a relationship that lead him to buying thousands of items from us. He was the biggest collector of antiques the world has ever seen.

US$2.75

PARIS

Daum looks a little bit like an artist. An artist when he creates, when he paints, he makes sculpture - he hasn't really the choice in what he's doing. His feelings oblige him'.

US$2.75

PARIS

The artist I have in my gallery right now killed himself in 1981 - he had no echo whatsoever in the 70's: he had broken up with a certain art he was doing in the 50's where he was quite successful, then he had a white period. He went back to colour and nobody wanted that art, nobody liked it, but it was highly spiritual. At one point in time he couldn't bear the pressure anymore - the non pressure, the void, there was no answer.

US$2.75

PARIS

If we were to send someone from our Quality Control to the Public Museums right now and check all the porcelain pieces that are in their collections, I would say that about 90% of it would be rejected.

US$2.75

I remember that when I was young and had a shop in the 16th arronedisemont in Paris , I exhibited a commode in the display window for almost 7 or 8 months and finally sold it to an antique dealers who lived in Bordeaux . A week later, a truck stopped in front of my shop and two men started unloading the commode that I had sold to the dealers from Bordeaux. So I open the door for them to come in, thinking that probably there was something wrong with the commode and then these two men just passed by my shop and took the commode to the first floor . I then realised that the art dealer from Bordeaux had sold the commode to my neighbour.

US$2.75

PARIS

When you show a picture to an Italian expert, he says 'Oh it is too reserved it must be French'. Then you show it to a Northern specialist and he says 'Oh it is too light, it is too easy on the subject, it must be French'. So it is a kind of a combination of sort of Northern rigours and then the Italian Brio.

US$2.75

MILAN

The art world in Italy is not concentrated in only one place like perhaps in Paris. Each part of Italy is full of art made in that place. So you can find in Milan furniture from the north of Italy, in Venito which is close there is Venitian style which is different, In Turin again close to France you can find you find another style of art and again when you go to Bologna or Florence or Rome or Sicily there are different kinds of style. It is very interesting - it is much more eclectic.

US$2.75