JAN DES BOUVRIE: HIS PASSION FOR ART

Jan des Bouvrie used to hang art between the furniture in his parents' shop. By Wim T. Schippers, Paul de Lussanet, Jan Cremer… What didn't sell, he hung up at home. And it was the start of an enviable collection. Jan about his passion for art. Originating from LXRY Magazine (2015)

Text: Bart-Jan Brouwer
Portrait photography: Rahi Rezvani | Online Editorial: Larissa Schaule JullensWhere did your passion for art originate?
“As a little boy I looked with fascination at a poster of Picassos Guernica that hung above my bed. Not so much about the picture, but about the content: in one line was the entire story of the Spanish Civil War. Later I attended the Applied Arts School together with Wim T. Schippers and Ger van Elk. I then traded furniture for art with them, for example a sofa for a painting. That was the beginning, unconsciously, of my art collection. I now have a work by both Schippers and Van Elk in my collection. When I started working in my parents' business after my studies, I quickly saw that people were not working with art for their interior at all. They decorated their house in a modern way, but then hung up a weak poster The last Supper or Pieter Bruegel on the wall, never modern art. They weren't into it. And the people who were into it went to galleries. But those galleries only had art, and not the feeling of the interior. We were the first in the Netherlands to hang art between the furniture in the store, including works by Wim T. Schippers, Paul de Lussanet and Jan Cremer. I discovered that avant-garde art was a hard sell. Then I took those works out of the store and gave them a place at home. I also went sight-seeing with paintings. Then I had created an interior for customers and I came by with art and explained it. I paid as much attention to the art as I did to the furniture. I sold a lot of art that way. Because a gallery doesn't work like that, it doesn't go to people with art. This is how I also warmed Joop and Janine van den Ende to art. And Herman Heinsbroek. He bought his first paintings from me and now has one of the most beautiful art collections in the country.”

Frits Becht, one of the largest private collectors in the Netherlands, was your inspiration. He taught you how to look at art.
“I had decorated it and it was really great in his home. He once came to my shop and said: 'Jan, this is unacceptable what you have hanging here. You should look at Jan Schoonhoven, at Lucio Fontana, at Andy Warhol.' He sometimes came to eat with me. When he looked at art he didn't like, he would sit somewhere else because he didn't want to look at 'such a bad painting'. I once played a joke on him: he had a Berlage clock on his mantelpiece at home. I turned it over to see if he would see that. He never found out. Finally I told him: 'Hey, you can't see properly anymore!' Becht – and also another client of mine, Nol Gregoor, then editorial director of the VARAgids – had a feeling for what was new in art. He taught me the names of the avant-garde that was starting then. And I picked that up very quickly. I bought original screen prints of Warhol's queens at the Serious Affairs Gallery for a few hundred guilders. If you got there on time, it was affordable. I have a few more. In the same gallery I later came across Chinese paintings, one of which also hung with my neighbor Ferry Hoogendijk. Special work. I've been there five times and they fascinated me more and more. They were pieces of a few thousand euros. The gallerist said: 'That won't sell, it's much too complicated for here.' Then I bought five. These are now the most important Chinese artists auctioned around the world at Christie's and Sotheby's, including Zhang Xiaogang. It is the art of buying art that hasn't happened yet. And I immediately see that it is not a one-hit wonder, but that it survives its time and is also important in its time. Art is the translation of time, the moments of that time captured. In the long run they will become Rembrandts again.”Speaking of Rembrandt: do you have a thing for such Old Masters?
“Rembrandt is so brilliant with light in a painting; no one can do that as well as he can. But if I go for the night watch I think: well, those people just had to be portrayed. The painters of that time were the photographers of today. Only the real masters emerged. To be honest, I am more interested in the drawings of these painters, the studies, because in their draftsmanship you recognize the true artist. Just as Rembrandt and Picasso could create something with one simple line. But Aat Veldhoen and Paul de Lussenet can draw just as well. You recognize their handwriting in their sketches. For example, Aat painted very wildly, but in those basic drawings you really see what he can do. De Lussenet gives me a signed shoe every year for my birthday, because he thinks I'm a dancing type. How that's drawn, man!”

Name a 'Rembrandt in the making'?
“Gérard Rancinan. I got it from him Batman Family Boys, Batman Family Girls en Le Banquet Des Idoles, a kind of last supper with all the deceased icons of the twentieth century, from Jimi Hendrix to Che Guevara. He is a passionate fool and a perfectionist and walks around his studio like an idiot: 'Jan, you have to see this. Jan, you have to see that.' Ferry Hoogendijk once said about him: 'Jan, that will be the new Rembrandt!' It could well be possible.”

Like Rancinan, you have met almost all the artists in your collection.
“Marlene Dumas, Christo… And also Jim Dine. The first drawing I saw of him was for me… boom! When I heard that he was coming to a gallery in Amsterdam, I went there that evening. He looked a little shy. I started talking to him and the two of us ended up going out to dinner. I find it interesting to see the philosophy behind the art. And you can only hear that from the artist himself. I also met Warhol at Studio 54 in New York. Only drugs were sold upstairs in that former theater. I sat down on the couch in the hall. A man came and sat next to me. We started talking. After fifteen minutes he said: 'By the way, I am Andy Warhol.' I was really blocked. I already had some of his work, including Campbell's Soup Cans en Marilyn Diptych. What struck me: all those people I met in art: as soon as it was about their passion, the conversation was unique. Warhol was an art director at an advertising agency. One evening he was talking to a friend: he wanted to quit his job the next day because he wasn't happy. He wanted to make art, but didn't know what. Then that friend said: you should only make what you like. Campbell soup, Marilyn Monroe… That's how he started. You can also see from his style – photos with paint over them and all that – that he was a graphic designer.”You also visited Arman's studio in New York. You didn't go home empty handed...
“On the stairs from his studio to his home above I saw a work of art that he had made from a cello, old wood and cigar boxes. Homage to Pablo is called. I really wanted it and asked if I could buy it. At first he didn't want that. But we had a nice conversation and at the end of the day, as we walked back down the stairs, he said: 'You can buy it from me.' He understood that I am a sincere collector and that I do not see art as a trade.”

Which work of art from your collection are you most proud of?
“A Schoonhoven. I received it from Nol Gregoor at the time in exchange for a side table. Schoonhoven was not yet well known at the time, but now that work is worth a fortune. But Nol probably enjoyed that side table just as much. There used to be a lot of exchange, but not anymore. And I used to buy works impulsively. Now I sleep on it. When I lie in bed and see a work of art keep coming back, I know it is good.”When you enter your villa, you immediately see a giant teapot from Studio Job covered with thousands of white gold mosaic stones with The Paradise Portraits by Erwin Olaf on either side. How is such a device created?
“We were in Paris in a gallery where those portraits of Erwin Olaf were hanging. Monique became completely hysterical, she thought they were so beautiful. We talk to that gallery owner: series sold out. I call Erwin – of course I know him: 'Don't you have any? artist's proof?' He did have it, but he didn't want to sell it. A while later I am at the RAI and I see Erwin on his bike. I grab him and say: 'Erwin, it's not just about me, but Monique absolutely wants to buy those portraits of you.' And then he said yes. Again, that feeling of: then the work will end up well. And then I am usually the one who sees where it looks best in the house, with a high window in the middle. Same with that teapot from Studio Job. We saw this in Milan, at an exhibition by glass mosaic manufacturer Bisazza, who always commissioned artists to make art with their stones. We enter there and see that teapot: even though we were in the Deux Chevaux, it had to come with us! It is the beauty of art that you have those moments, that you really say: that is Article. I was talking to Job Smeets and asked how he came up with the idea for that teapot. He said that as a little boy he always played with his mother's pots and pans; he made piles of them. You can see that in his art.”

Your house looks like a gallery.
“I have built the Golden Age for myself. By being involved with art. I don't think people realize what it is to have art, even just one thing, in your room. Art that you love, that you can look at every day. I had a retrospective exhibition at the Singer Museum in 2012: a hundred of my works of art hung above my furniture. While I used to be vilified by the gallery owners: 'Jan des Bouvrie, that's just art above the couch.' When I made that selection for Singer, I realized that I actually had way too much art. I decided to keep only the core, one work per artist, and sell the rest. I have held two auctions. I used part of the proceeds to buy new work and repurchase the two most important works that I had previously sold: a blue bust by Yves Klein and Laineau's sheep. That means my art collection now is such that I don't want to buy a painting tomorrow. Nothing is finished in life, but I do limit myself to buying all new things.”

What does your art say about you?
"Nothing. Yeah, you know what it says about me? My lifestyle. In the old days when playing marbles you wanted that one big marble. And that's what I've been doing my whole life. I just want the good painting and the good car. I'm going for the big marble. That's the child in me. I said to Monique yesterday: 'I'm finally starting to grow up.' To which she said, 'I hope not. I hope the child remains in you.'” https://www.youtube.com/embed/kNV2rVZnudE&t=9s