Daniel Gervais is an art collector known in Turkey for selling his Mübin Orhon painting last year for a record price.
It is always a mystery how the collectors reached those paintings. Sotheby’s magazine March 4- April 20 issue published an interview with Gervais and revealed really essential information about collectors and the paintings they own.
I think the short interview also revealed how a person becomes a collector and how a collector can share his paintings with others.
Collector Gervais said he met Mübin Orhon at the 14th Arrondissement in Paris when he was visiting Fikret Mualla. Those two artists had studios in Paris. In his first visit, which was in 1962, Gervais bought his first painting from Orhon.
In fact, Gervais today might be only one of a few people who can speak about Orhon and about his art. Gervais is capable of answering questions like, how Orhon’s style developed and how he was influenced by the artists around him.
Gervais knows that Orhon visited art galleries in St. Germain-des-Prés and met many artists such as Jean-Michel Atlan and Serge Polikoff. Orhon was producing works in the Informal Movement during the 1950s. However, beginning from the 1960s, he developed his own personal style and that’s when his colorful gestural compositions occurred.
Gervais said Orhon was a real innovator.
When asked why he decided to offer these works for sale after 50 years, Gervais’s answer is really interesting. He said he bought paintings many years ago and he had the chance to live with them half a century.
Grevais decided to sell the paintings for the reputation and memory of his friends and offer everyone the chance to be able to live with those masterpieces.
Gervais offered people the chance to experience a life with Orhon’s money.
Even though collecting and selling the artworks often reminds us of money and capitalism, the words of Gervais tell us it is not just about money. It is the culture and the value that come with a generation.