Zurich.- Through January 15th 2012 the Kunsthaus Zürich is proud to present the first-ever exhibition of masterpieces from the private collection of the Nahmad family. The art collector of Art Kabinett network is very familiar with the family's amazing gallery on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
This exclusive world premiere, entitled ‘Miró, Monet, Matisse – The Nahmad Collection’, will feature more than 100 paintings by Miró, Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky, Monet, Magritte and many others.
Based in Monaco but with members as far away as London and New York, the Nahmad family has been collecting great art for two generations, ranging from Impressionism to Surrealism and beyond.
With a connoisseur’s eye for quality, the art-dealing family has spent decades single-mindedly acquiring paintings and sculptures. The masterpieces that make up this unique private collection have never before been shown together.
Their extraordinary quality caught the public eye when works generously loaned to the Kunsthaus were displayed as part of the hugely successful ‘Picasso’ exhibition which closed earlier this year.
Indeed Picasso, with a breathtaking selection of work from all phases of his career, is one of the best-represented artists in the Nahmad Collection; but there are also Matisse, Modigliani and Kandinsky, with whole series of brilliant pieces; and Claude Monet, one of the ancestors of the modernist movement, with luminous images of his travels in the south.
With a collection numbering several hundred works to choose from, some tough decisions needed to be made. Christoph Becker, Director of the Kunsthaus Zürich and curator of the exhibition, and Helly Nahmad, have been entrusted with the preparations, and made some surprising choices.
Exceptional works by Mark Rothko, Alberto Giacometti and Salvador Dalí have been omitted, and the focus of the selection lies elsewhere. It follows the orthodox canon but with some highly eclectic touches: starting with the late Impressionism of Renoir and Degas at the end of the 19th century it moves on to cover everything from Cubism and Abstraction to Surrealism. Renee Magritte, Fernand Léger and Max Ernst are shown side by side with an outstanding group of works by Joan Miró. Claude Monet’s ‘Canotiers à Argenteuil’ (1874), Wassily Kandinsky’s ‘Study for Improvisation 3’ and Kazimir Malevich’s important ‘Suprematist Composition’ (1916) have been picked to appear in Zurich.
Together with Henri Matisse’s ‘Portrait au manteau bleu’ and Modigliani’s portrait of the art dealer Paul Guillaume, they offer a truly astonishing tour of some great moments in modern art.
Among the more than 100 works are a number that the family has not parted with for decades. One prominent example is Picasso’s charming ‘Petit pierrot aux fleurs’, shown above. Painted in 1923/24, it was presented by Pablo Picasso to the paediatrician who tended his son Paulo – shown wearing a harlequin costume – following an accident.
The Nahmads acquired it for their collection in 1988. Out of the public eye for many years, the original of this popular motif can now at last be viewed by a wider audience.
David Nahmad and his two brothers have become influential megadealers of modern and impressionist art by the most well-known names, from Monet and Matisse to Renoir and Rothko.
They own a vast inventory of between 4,000 and 4,500 works in a duty-free warehouse next to the airport in Geneva, Switzerland. Among those holdings: 300 Picassos, worth some $900 million. The family buys and sells most of their works at auction.
The family also trades millions of dollars in currencies and commodities.
A skilled backgammon player who bets hundreds of thousands on the game in Monte Carlo, David holds the 1996 world title.
