French Inspiration
February 2008
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.On the second level up from the living room one can contemplate Cocteau’s large pastel-and-charcoal rendering of "La Métamorphose d’Actéon" (1951), which depicts the celebrated huntsman of Greek mythology being transformed into a stag. Next to it is the series of large hands and forearms that Cocteau created for Hermès in Paris in 1942. These six panels, which were used as illustrations by Sacha Guitry in his 1952 book L’Illusioniste, reveal the elegance of Cocteau’s own artistic hands and the rope motif long used by Hermès.
The grand stairway to Wunderman’s private quarters is covered with a hand-loomed carpet woven with the family crest and lit by two blackamoor statues holding alabaster torches. En route is a 1979 work in oil and gouache painted as a portrait of the artist in his gallery in a realistic manner by Tomassi Ricardo Ferroni, which had been in Aldo Gucci’s collection. Wunderman admires this 10-foot by 12-foot work, which is a recreation of an artist’s studio depicted in neoclassical contemporary conception.
Though Wunderman collects modern art, he typically refrains from buying much contemporary work. "Let history judge them. Important art, truly important art, has been judged by history and not recent university graduates with the values of the present," he says. The few contemporary pieces that he does own "reflect the values and techniques of their predecessors," he notes.
In the hallway that leads to the master bedroom suite is Léon Bakst’s original gouache drawing for Igor Stravinsky’s famed ballet "The Firebird," which created such a sensation in the Ballets Russes presentation in Paris from 1909 to 1912. Along the same wall is Georges Rouault’s painting "Deux Bouffons et une Ballerina," which depicts the artist’s two loves: the ballet and the circus. Rouault’s long apprenticeship to creators of stained-glass windows is apparent as one notes the work’s unit-like composition executed in broad brushstrokes with a deliberate avoidance of detail.
The master bedroom is a showcase for Wunderman’s 1860 Empire bed, Regency wine cooler, 1820 ormolu-and-walnut chair, elaborate boule and black lacquer desk. The bathroom of faux-marble columns with bronze ram’s heads and majolica garden stools conveys the owner’s whimsical taste. By contrast François Boucher’s 18th-century oil painting "The Muse Erato," originally in the collection of the Marquise de Pompadour, conveys the voluptuous eroticism of the 18th century. Boucher and Fernando Botero are a study in contrasts concerning eroticism, then and now. Botero’s "Nude Lady in Red Shoes," displayed in the living room is typical of Wunderman’s sense of whimsy when it comes to his art collecting. The life-sized oil on canvas depicts a rotund nude viewing herself in a hand mirror as she balances on her tiny red pumps assisted by a diminutive chair. These paintings, which are married by the same sense of the majestic and embody painterly excellence, express Wunderman’s penchant for a diversity of themes.
Another example of Wunderman’s diversity is Marc Chagall’s oil of a vase of flowers. Huddled at the base are two joined figures. A letter from Chagall’s daughter, Ida, in Wunderman’s possession, confirms that these figures represented herself and her mother. The image of a vase of flowers comes to mind as well when one thinks of Moïse Kisling. Wunderman selected "Gina" (1925) for its solid painterly style, in which the stolid figure is more commanding than erotic. In the portrait, the subject’s dark hair lies on her shoulder and covers her forehead, almost concealing her black smoldering eyes.
Maurice Utrillo, who is known for his scenes of Paris, is represented in the Wunderman collection by a street scene in which the painting is bisected by street and sky. Trees and buildings frame a typical Parisian street scene in which the architecture is outlined by rows of trees. Kees Van Dongen, who shared a studio with Picasso in the early 20th century, found fame primarily through portraits of sullen, heavily mascaraed women. His oil "Fleurs" is a departure, and his colors (a blue-and-white striped vase on a blue table with an orange background) are suggestive of Matisse’s colors.
Concomitant with the early painting of Van Dongen was that of Maurice de Vlaminck. This early oil study, "Bouquet de fleurs" (1914), reveals a formalism that is not found in his later works in which darkened skies cut across his landscapes. Here the lavender and white flowers crowd a vase with none of the violence that prevails in his later works.Marie Laurencin was a lover of the poet Guillaume Apollinaire. Here we encounter one of her unusual portraits of the oil on canvas "Femme au Turban Rose et au Collier" (1939). There is a feminine quality surrounding all of her works, which includes her use of colors. Rose and white seem to predominate.
The west wing the main hallway is graced by an 1840 Dutch marquetry desk-cabinet and leads to further works in the art collection. "L’Appel du Sang" ("The Call of Blood") (1947) is more mysterious than most of René Magritte’s works. This gouache is a tree that opens in two places to reveal a sphere and a castle. A third door is partially closed. In imaginative content it is one of his finest works. It links Wunderman to his passion for mystery and his long-standing admiration for Surrealism.
A few feet away we encounter a solemn funeral procession in the Place Sante de Brussels by Franz Gailliard, a somber work of dark colors, which stands in marked contrast to the works that one sees in the dining room, for it is a procession of ceremonial dignity. Two very fine Canaletto views of Venice, "The Grand Canal" and "San Marco," grace the walls of the formal dining room, creating a placid atmosphere illuminated by a circa-1880 Waterford cut-crystal chandelier.
In the dining room we also encounter Cocteau’s "Arlequin au Crabe" and "La Femme au Poisson" (both c. 1955). Harlequin’s caprices were often enacted by Cocteau, and the artist drew these two large pastels for a restaurant in the south of France near Nice. These two paintings are accompanied by sculptures of two antique Venetian blackamoor gondoliers.
As we continue toward the library we find Jean Metzinger’s oil portrait "La Femme Bleue," a fine example of this artist’s work. Her seated torso picks up the blue of the sea to her back. A journal and flowers are on the table to her left. The hard verticals and horizontals of the walls and windows are a contrast to the softness of her figure.
A large female torso also dominates Jean Souverbie’s oil "La Femme Bleue." The work is intriguing for the foreshortening expressed by the right forearm and hand that, hit by sunlight, serves as a foil to obscure the subject’s face. In the background we see a version of Neptune emerging from the sea drawn by three white horses. This appears to be almost an homage to Giorgio de Chirico, who treated the Neptune subject in the same manner.
While overseeing watch creations in Switzerland, Wunderman came into the sphere of Hans Erni, a master of line who is known not only for his paintings but his large public murals and his book illustrations. Wunderman posed for a portrait. The striped garments play well against the white chairs that seem to float on the canvas. There is a quiet drama in composition and in the detailed facial expression. Erni is a celebrated living master in many countries, but especially in his home, Switzerland.
As we enter Wunderman’s inner sanctum one sees his library of art books and biographies in a Regency bookcase. Here he contemplates designs for watches and plans for the theme of his next Basel Fair: International Timepiece Exposition, which is held annually.
Wunderman uses his intuition combined with his trust in his curator and fellow collectors in order to acquire his art. One of the pleasures of visiting his penthouse gallery is that he changes elements in his collection with some frequency. He has also made numerous loans to museums in Europe and Asia. "Art is to be shared," he says. "If it is not exhibited it is merely hoarded."
Dr. William Emboden, who lectures frequently on art and science, is the author of The Visual Art of Jean Cocteau (1989) and Jean Cocteau and the Illustrated Book (1990) as well as eight other books.