The case

The Fondation de l’Hermitage announced that they were going to host a very special collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces from the Petit Palais Geneva in spring this year.

Source: Fondation de l’Hermitage

The commentary

In the 1950s Oscar Ghez, an industrialist of Tunisian origin, began acquiring works that reflect his remarkably free approach to collecting. He had a special interest in late-19th and early 20th century paintings that was not confined to the great masters. Alongside magnificent works by Édouard Manet and Auguste Renoir, Ghez also acquired superb paintings by artists less known at the time, such as Gustave Caillebotte, Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, Charles Angrand, Maximilien Luce and Louis Valtat, some of whom have since become iconic.

Ghez also purchased many paintings by female artists, including Marie Bracquemond, Jeanne Hébuterne, Nathalie Kraemer, Tamara de Lempicka and Suzanne Valadon, long before their work began to be studied and ultimately received the recognition it deserved.

Oscar Ghez passed away in 1998, and since his death Le Petit Palais has been closed to the public. His son Claude, who was a professor of neuroscience at New York’s Columbia University, inherited the collection and has shown some of the works his father collected at international exhibitions on a regular basis.