Chefs-d'œuvre de la Collection Pinault [French version]

Over the past two decades, the Pinault Collection, now known to comprise more than 10,000 works, has been revealed to the public through exhibitions held in its museums and within the walls of partner institutions.

This book offers a new perspective on the collection, not as an exhibition catalogue, but through a selection of more than one hundred masterpieces. In a publication of this kind, it is therefore the collector’s perspective that comes to the fore, insofar as he is not only the one who acquired the selected works, but also the one who validated the choice to designate certain of them as masterpieces.

Rather than providing an exhaustive description, this catalogue offers an overview of the diversity of the Pinault Collection, from video installations to paintings and sculptures, while also sketching a possible history of art over the past sixty years. Taking as its starting point a work by Lucio Fontana dating from 1958, the publication unfolds chronologically, with each work accompanied by a short entry written by international experts. From Georg Baselitz to Maurizio Cattelan, Urs Fischer, Félix González-Torres, and David Hammons, via Dan Flavin, this body of works presents a broad panorama and reflects the richness of contemporary artistic creation.

With texts by Jean-Jacques Aillagon, former president of the Centre Pompidou, former Minister of Culture, and close adviser to François Pinault; Emma Lavigne, Director of the Pinault Collection; and Max Hollein, Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.