Art
François Pinault collects art of the 20th century (Mondrian, Picasso, Man Ray, ...) before following contemporary artists (David Hammons, Rudolf Stingel, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Subodh Gupta, Paul McCarthy, Bruce Nauman, Donald Judd, Robert Ryman, ...).[16] In 2023, his art collection contained approximately 10,000 works.[17]
Pinault bought his first significant painting, Cour de ferme (1891) by Paul Sérusier, in the early 1970s, and continued acquiring early-20th-century French artists (Picasso, Braque, Léger, Yves Tanguy). In 1990, he bought Piet Mondrian's Losangique II for $8.8 million, a significant acquisition that redefined his approach to collecting art: "I understood then that I could gain access to the best art of my lifetime and that I could dream of a collection of that quality". He started acquiring post-war paintings (Rauschenberg, Warhol) and developed close ties with contemporary artists (Jeff Koons, Cy Twombly, Richard Serra, Damien Hirst, Cindy Sherman, David Hammons).[16] In 1998, he acquired the auction house Christie's for 1.2 billion euros, two years before private auction houses were legalized in France.[5][9] He acquired art at a rapid pace, including monumental work by Richard Serra and Mike Kelley, but was lacking space and stored 80% of his acquisitions.[16]
In 2005, François Pinault bought the company Palazzo Grassi SpA which operated the Palazzo Grassi in Venice. The Japanese architect Tadao Ando renovated the historical building which housed the first exhibition of Pinault Collection in 2006.[4] One year later, the Venice city council awarded the tender of the Punta della Dogana, which had been abandoned for 30 years, to Pinault Collection, adding 5,000 m2 to the Palazzo Grassi space in Venice.[18] Tadao Ando also restored this historical site, which reopened to the public in June 2009.[19] In 2013, Pinault achieved the third chapter of his cultural project in Venice with the renovation and transformation of the Teatrino, an open-air theater in ruins. Designed once again by Tadao Ando, the new Teatrino holds a 225-seat auditorium.[20]
In 2016, Pinault and the city of Paris announced their plan to turn the Bourse de commerce in the center of Paris (1st arrondissement) into a new, Pinault Collection-branded contemporary art museum.[21] Tadao Ando was put in charge of transforming the historic building. The museum opened in May 2021.[22]In 2014, François Pinault launched, through the Pinault Collection, an artist residency program in Lens (Northern France) which opened in 2015.[23][24] In 2015, in memory of his friend the writer (and Picasso biographer) Pierre Daix who died in 2014, Pinault created the Pierre Daix Prize to reward an outstanding book on modern and contemporary art every year.[25]
