In a penthouse occupying two levels totaling 5,600 square feet at the top of a handsome building in LosAngeles’ Westwood section is the home of Severin Wunderman. Getting through the many liveried guardians of this tower, where many of Los Angeles’ wealthy and famous have resided, is simple if you are known. Wunderman’s penthouse is unique for the building in that it has windows with vistas of both the city and the Pacific Ocean. Inside, though, the view is just as breathtaking, as each room is filled with part of Wunderman’s collection of fine art, antiques and objects of caprice, mainly from the 18th and early 20th century. It is the décor of a gentleman who has an aesthetic of contrast in all things—reflective of its owner’s eclectic approach to life.

Wunderman fled Nazi-occupied Belgium as an adolescent shortly after World War II, settled in Los Angeles with his sister, Bella, who had arrived earlier, and enrolled at Fairfax High School. He soon became involved in a watch and jewelry business, where he moved up in the ranks when he assured Aldo Gucci that he could fill an order for watches that another supplier could not. When Wunderman accomplished this in record time, he was given the responsibility for all aspects of the creation and distribution of Gucci timepieces. After a number of years in charge of Gucci’s design sales and marketing, Wunderman left the company and acquired the Swiss corporation Corum. Its unique watches, created by a group of artists and craftsmen of the Swiss Watch Guild, have become collectors’ items in their own right. Wunderman’s rewards are considerable, and with these he has formed a foundation that underwrites those who are sick, injured, or in any way without help. For his contributions to French culture, Wunderman was recently awarded the French Legion of Honor medal.

Wunderman’s interest in collecting art began in his youth after viewing "Les Enfants Terribles" after which he found a drawing for the film by Jean Cocteau. Inspired by the artist’s enormous creativity and genius, he scraped together money to buy his first Cocteau drawing; it was the seminal acquisition for what has since become one of the finest Cocteau collections in private hands. His collection reached a turning point in 1980 when he met gallery owner Tony Clark, who has subsequently become a chevalier in the French Order of Arts and Letters, and invited him to acquire for and curate his collections as well as worldwide exhibitions, which, to date, have been mounted in the United States, Europe and Asia. Over the past decade as the director of the Severin Wunderman Museum, which was first located in Irvine, California, then exhibited its works in diverse galleries of Europe and Asia, Clark has developed and built upon Wunderman’s Cocteau collection and produced more than 100 events celebrating French arts. In this capacity, Clark is charged with realizing Wunderman’s vision of creating a blue-chip collection. "At last count there were over 75 art movements," Wunderman says. "I have no interest in ‘movements,’ only fine drawing, painting and sculpting. The rest is for an audience with a mentality quite different from my own."

Wunderman, who also maintains residences in England and the south of France, enjoys wandering the antiques shops and galleries of Europe, always finding treasures to add to his growing collection. "The one that I love the most is the one that I have most recently acquired," he says. He has a position among the aristocracy of Europe and from them he acquires some very fine art and objets de virtu. He does not buy at auction because, as he states, "I am in competition with no man."

Wunderman admires Mme. de Pompadour as a collector. "I am pleased to have a few of her pieces. Instead of refraining from collecting, as advised, she merely bought more residences in which to house them. After her demise it took two years to dispose of all of her collections. She was a true collector."

Designer David A. Harte is Head of Interiors for all Wunderman’s residences, serving as curator for his furniture and objects. You can see his touch in the penthouse. Jean Cocteau’s prominence in the collection is introduced in the entrance to the living room: a self-portrait of Cocteau’s companion, Jean Marais, as Ruy Blas in Cocteau’s 1947 film adaptation of the Victor Hugo drama. Marais kept this in his home until it was acquired by Wunderman directly from the actor. Across from this painting is a 1959 bronze by Cocteau depicting Marais as a faun. It was the only sculpture by the artist and is a handsome impression conveying great imagination and sensuality.

"The Comte de Vaudreuil Contemplating an Early Map" by French Neoclassical painter Hubert Drouais is displayed next to a carved marble fireplace and gilded mirror. In this work, rich in both color and imagery, an elegantly dressed and coiffed 18th-century figure points to some distant place.

High above the transition between the upper and lower living rooms is "Judith et Holopherne," three congruent pastel and oil works on board that depict the moment from the Apocryphal Book of Judith when the heroine, a widow named Judith, sneaks into the camp of Holofernes and decapitates him, thus freeing her city from its oppressor.