Choosing a women's voice: how to be a spokesperson for female talent

How can we start collecting? CAN YOU GIVE US SOME ADVICE?

First of all, you need to train your eyes by visiting the most important museums and galleries in the city where you live. If you can, go to London, Paris or New York, preview exhibitions of auction houses and follow online auctions. In one or two years, you will have seen at least a thousand or two thousand works for free. You will have started to understand what you like and will be able to get an idea of the quality and prices of what you want to collect.

“Mona Compostezza” (1973), di Franciszka Themerson. © Courtesy The Levett Collection

How do you choose your works? DO YOU RELY ON A GALLERY OWNER OR A CURATOR?

I think a work has to strike a chord. Its genius captures you, whether it is the extreme talent in the execution, the colour and composition or the message it wants to convey. In contemporary art, we often look for originality, but I believe that genius is also expressed in the execution of the work, in its formal aspects. I have never turned to dealers or curators to choose my works, although I have asked their opinion on specialist matters especially in the past when I bought Old Masters. In these cases, a thorough knowledge of the work's condition, attribution, authenticity, provenance is necessary. It is always appropriate to do checks even for a painting that is just over 30 years old.

ThREE EMERGING ARTISTS TO KEEP AN EYE ON AND THREE TRANSCURRENT ARTISTS TO DISCOVER.

Among the up-and-comers are Elizabeth Colomba, a Frenchwoman of Martinique origin who paints portraits of black people in historical settings. Thelonious Stokes, another fantastic painter whose studio I finance in Florence, and Gabriella Boyd, whom I have been following since I bought her work at the Royal Academy School's annual exhibition. Among the rediscoveries are Sylvia Snowden, Nancy Graves and Dorothy Dehner: they had brilliant exhibition careers until the 1980s and have recently started to gain visibility again.

Altre opere nella casa di Levett. Da sinistra, recto: “Jeune femme inclinée”, verso: “Femme assise dedos” (c. 1936-1938), di Louise Bourgeois. “Homme à l’enfant”(c. 1936-1938), di Louise Bourgeois.“Look Up! (#4”), 2010, di Louise Bourgeois.“Couple” (2003), di Cecily Brown. ©Fraser Marr

DO YOU LIKE TO SHARE YOUR COLLECTION WITH THE PUBLIC? ARE THERE WORKS YOU KEEP ONLY FOR YOURSELF?

At the moment, about 70 of my works are on loan in various museums, which is a great honour for me. The work I do not part with is a bust of a young man painted on wood from the Renaissance period. The boy wears a robe and headdress similar to those of Raphael in his famous self-portrait in Florence. Looking at it, I feel transported to the workshop of a 15th century artist.

Alle pareti della casa di Levett, “Black Pegoda” (1958-59), di Judith Godwin; Stove (1959),di Pat Passlof; “Rufus’ Rock” (1966), di Joan Mitchell. ©Fraser Marr

YOUR COLLECTION HAS CHANGED OVER THE YEARS. HOW DID YOU APPROACH CONTEMPORARY ART AND FEMALE ARTISTS?

About ten years ago I decided to focus on modern and contemporary art, partly because it was becoming very difficult to find works by Old Masters with a definite attribution. I started with post-World War II works, soon buying artists such as Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Cecily Brown and Tracey Emin. Thanks to exhibitions like the Elaine de Kooning exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington and the retrospective of Abstract Expressionists in Denver, I fell in love with this period. I realised that there was a large number of works with an important exhibition history on the market, an excellent opportunity to build a cohesive and meaningful collection, which is financially impossible for works by male artists. In addition to Impressionists and Surrealists, I have recently expanded the boundaries of the collection to include works by contemporary women artists, exploring a time span from 1860 to the present.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR MUSEUM, THE FEMMES ARTISTES DU MUSÉE DE MOUGINS (FAMM) THAT WILL OPEN IN JUNE.

In 2011, in Mougins, near Cannes, I opened the Mougins Museum of Classical Art (MACM) to display my collection of antiquities, alongside works ranging from Baroque to contemporary. The museum remained open to the public until September 2023, was nominated for the European Museum of the Year Award in 2013 and won several prizes. This year I decided to change its layout to bring it more in line with my recent collecting interests and to reopen it in June with a new name and a new mission: the FAMM will be the first museum in continental Europe entirely dedicated to women's art.

“Mid-Day of the Canary”(1967), di Leonora Carrington. © Courtesy The Levett Collection

WHICH ARE YOUR FAVORITE ADDRESSES FOR A HOLIDAY IN FLORENCE, WHERE YOU HAVE A BEAUTIFUL HOUSE ON THE ARNO, AND IN MOUGINS?

Definitely L'Amandier, the Mougins restaurant I own, right next to the museum. It boasts an extraordinary culinary history dating back to the legendary chef Roger Vergé, one of the fathers of modern French cuisine, and its terraces offer breathtaking views. In Florence, the hotel I recommend is the Four Seasons - for its gardens, outdoor pool, restaurant - and I really appreciate the luxury and comfort of The St. Regis Florence.

Christian Levett. Alle sue spalle “Two Women” (1954), di Grace Hartigan. Sul mobile, “Looking North (Green)”, 1964, di Dorothy Dehner. ©Fraser Marr

ARTISTS  Louise Bourgeois . Gabriella Boyd . Cecily Brown . Leonora Carrington . Elizabeth Dove . Elaine de Kooning . Dorothy Dehner . Tracey Emin . Pio Fedi . Helen Frankenthaler . Judith Godwin . Nancy Graves . Grace Hartigan . Lee Krasner . Joan Mitchell . Alice Neel . Sylvia Snowden . Pat Passlof . Pat Steir . Thelonious Stokes .  Franciszka Themerson .

VISIT British Museum . FAMM . National Gallery of Art .

EATING AND SLEEPING  Four Seasons Firenze . L'Amandier de Mougins . The St. Regis Florence .