IF YOU HAD TO NAME THE TOP three museums in Paris, you would probably tick off the three most established and iconic: the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, and the Centre Pompidou. But if you had to name those most influential in the art world, it would be two that opened in the past decade: the Fondation Louis Vuitton and the Bourse de Commerce. The private museums of the fashion world titans—Bernard Arnault and François Pinault, respectively—stare at each other across four miles and two arrondissements, past the Eiffel Tower, the Place de la Concorde, and the Arc de Triomphe. They are among the two most powerful private museums in the world, but have evolved in very different directions.
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With Art Basel Paris growing ever more important, the fair’s October time slot has taken on a new significance for both museums: It’s when the eyes of the international art world focus most keenly on both of them. The two institutions are set to make a bigger impact than ever, but in very dissimilar ways.
The Pinault Collection opened in Paris, at the Bourse de Commerce, in 2021.
Photo Romain Laprade/©Pinault Collection/ADAGP, Paris
The Bourse de Commerce, one of several museums run by Pinault, opened in 2021, a year before the first Art Basel Paris, in the former Paris stock exchange. A symbol of 19th-century French economic might, it mushrooms from the ventre—belly—of Paris, as Émile Zola famously called the city’s densely built center, where the old Les Halles food market once stood. Now a museum with a sleek, minimalist interior renovated by architect Tadao Ando, the Bourse mounts ambitious, standout shows of contemporary art: Urs Fischer, David Hammons, Miriam Cahn, Marlene Dumas, Ali Cherri, and Arthur Jafa are among the experimental and subversive artists it has shown, introducing Parisian audiences to emerging and established creators whose work they had yet to experience at such a spectacular scale at home. More recently, there was Boris Mikhailov and Anri Sala in 2022, and “American Mythologies” (a group show featuring Mike Kelley, Lee Lozano, Mira Schor, and Ser Serpas) in 2023. Now, the Bourse is on to definitive exhibitions of art movements: Last year, it was Arte Povera; this year it’s Minimalism.
The Bourse de Commerce’s Arte Povera show helped redefine the movement.
Photo Nicolas Brasseur/Courtesy Pinault Collection, Paris
The Fondation Louis Vuitton (FLV), housed in a post-modern architectural construction that sprang to life in 2014, is on the western edge of town, where polished, stately, apartment-lined streets face the wooded Bois de Boulogne. The building’s massive glass and steel shell designed by Frank Gehry bursts from the skyline like a deconstructed ship or a breaching whale. This museum has gone a very different route, spotlighting monographic and two-artist shows that tend to set, or reset, the markets for those artists. Since the first Art Basel Paris, in 2022, FLV, which also presents its own display at Art Basel Paris, has settled into a rhythm showing the greats of modern and contemporary art. Extravagant, unparalleled modern and contemporary blockbuster art exhibitions with broad appeal fill the museum’s seasonal calendar, one after the other. A historic 2016 presentation of the Shchukin Collection, on loan from the Pushkin State Museum in Moscow, marked the first time many of the paintings in the collection had left Russia since they were bought from France, attracting a record number of visitors. This was followed by the equally acclaimed Morozov Collection in 2021. In 2022 came the first in a string of dual and single artist shows: the luminous “Monet – Mitchell” show, a market-making pairing that argued for Joan Mitchell’s central importance in art history, followed by, in 2023, a once-in-alifetime Mark Rothko show. And then came last year’s reassessment of the historically undervalued Pop painter Tom Wesselmann, whose work was everywhere during the city’s simultaneous fair. This year brings a blockbuster Gerhard Richter exhibition, and we can expect a similar echo at the Grand Palais venue and surrounding showcases.
Bernard Arnault’s Fondation Louis Vuitton opened in the Bois de Boulogne, on the edge
of Paris, in 2014.
Photo Frédéric Soltan/Corbis via Getty
Both the FLV and the Bourse de Commerce are privately run institutions founded by French luxury goods business tycoons who are among the wealthiest men in the world, and fixtures on the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list: Bernard Arnault, 76 (worth about $156 billion per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index), and François Pinault, 88 (worth some $21.4 billion, as of mid-August, per the same source). Arnault’s majorityowned luxury conglomerate LVMH Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (Christian Dior Couture, Givenchy, Fendi, Celine, Kenzo, Loewe, Bulgari, Tiffany, and others) funds FLV. The Bourse de Commerce, Pinault’s Paris museum, and the third he’s opened following two others in Venice, is dedicated to his collection. The Pinault Collection is a private company held by the Pinault family investment company Groupe Artémis, the majority shareholder of the Pinault-founded Kering group (Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, et al.). The Collection signed a 50-year lease on the Bourse de Commerce building in 2016.
Arnault, tall and spindly, is often referred to as “the wolf in cashmere” for his fierce business dealings. Pinault, stocky, with rounded, almost childlike facial features, is irreverently called the marchand de bois (wood vendor) in a nod to the industry that gave him his start.
Between the two, it hasn’t exactly been la vie en rose. Their competing luxury fashion empires famously went head-to-head, spurring a legendary Gallic rivalry that came with painful costs to both. But while their differences on that score seem mostly to have healed, scars can run deep, leaving us with the question of whether and to what extent it has shifted to their mighty art empires.
ARGUABLY THE BIGGEST FISH IN THE pond that is the Paris art scene, the duo are regularly compared to the Rothschilds, and even the Medici. Few come close to having the size and breadth of their art troves (Pinault’s has upward of 10,000 artworks, while no official numbers are given for Arnault’s, apparently because some artworks come in series, 330 of which, by 120 artists, have been on display since the foundation opened), nor to engaging in arts and culture at a similar public and highly visible level, whether through exhibitions, acquisitions, or support of artists.
“Today they are not each other’s preferred enemy, as used to be the case,” said Joan Le Goff, professor of business strategy and management at IAE Paris-Est, and coauthor of a 2021 article in The Conversation US that analyzes the competition between them. “There is no major challenger at their level today, and even if they’ve made peace in economic terms [because there are other adversaries to consider, notably in China], I think there is still this friendly competition between them in terms of the arts. There remains a kind of desire to emulate one another, that is very strong.”
Some examples: In 1998 Pinault purchased Christie’s auction house, which was followed by Arnault’s acquisition of Phillips in 1999, sold in 2002 at a loss. After dramatically failing to open an art center outside Paris, Pinault launched two art institutions in Venice, Palazzo Grassi in 2006 and Punta della Dogana in 2009. On the heels of Pinault’s first, failed attempt to build a private museum just outside Paris, Arnault announced in 2014 the creation of, and then inaugurated, the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Soon afterward, Pinault revealed he would return to Paris with a new art institution, this time at the Bourse de Commerce. They also own competing wineries in Bordeaux, media publications, and more recently, entertainment businesses.
In 2019 Pinault and Arnault gave back-to-back donations toward rebuilding the fire-damaged Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Pinault’s family pledged €100 million to the Notre-Dame cause, followed the very next day by the Arnault family’s gift of €200 million, in what the media dubbed the “battle of generosity.”
Then there are the myriad reported comments, often without named sources, by both sides criticizing the other’s arts initiatives. According to reporter Jean-Gabriel Fredet’s telling in The Secret War of the Art Billionaires (2019), Pinault’s team slammed Arnault’s methods for obtaining a building permit for the FLV in the Bois de Boulogne, thanks to a late-night parliamentary amendment. And inversely, Arnault reportedly called the mayor of Paris “to complain” about the City’s granting Pinault a 50-year lease on the Bourse de Commerce building without opening the process to alternative bidders.
From investigative tomes to academic studies to pithy media reports, much has been written about the two men, depicted facing off with clenched fists via their business groups and cultural teams. But it was hard to find evidence of such straightforward animosity between them today—despite many Paris dealers still adhering to that view. (“It’s no friendly rivalry—it’s a fierce one!” said one dealer anonymously.) That said, Arnault and Pinault do appear bound in a competitive, strategic dance of their own, performed in full glamorous regalia on the French cultural stage. As for those in the audience, they may very well stand to benefit most.
“[Arnault and Pinault] have always been following each other closely,” said Guillaume Piens, who runs the Art Paris fair. “So there’s a kind of ego competition, but it’s beneficial for all, because thanks to that, the perception of the contemporary art scene in France has really changed for foreigners. There was a shift when the two foundations opened … and they really contributed to that shift of Paris as a center for international contemporary art. There’s a before and after in this sense.”
Arnault and Pinault’s respective institutions are indeed credited for dusting off the Paris art world, but they are not alone. Fueled by Brexit and dynamic initiatives in support of artists, the French capital has been all but transformed in a matter of a few years, attracting a steady flow of major international galleries, artists, and, as of 2024, the world’s top art fair, Art Basel.
“Both Pinault and Arnault wanted to create that transformation in Paris and in areas around the country,” Bernard Blistène, director of the Centre Pompidou from 2013 to 2021, told me over Zoom. “They complement each other. They knew, with much intelligence, how to do what the other would not do. And that is also certainly the brilliance of the strategy they have put in place.” Competitive rivalries are arguably as much a driving part of art history as the very impulse to create. From warring Italian houses to artists and writers, some famous challengers range from Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo to the more recently portrayed opposition that fired tensions between Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas.
In fact, “I think competition between people is always good,” Piens said. “There’s always been competition between patrons. It made the Renaissance happen.”
That may be, but when I set out to learn more about the legend of Pinault and Arnault’s supposed match off and how it manifested specifically in the art world, as one might expect, I came up against a sleek, art-filled wall. But even this was ultimately revealing in its own way.
Celeste Boursier-Mougenot’s clinamen (2025), installed under the Bourse de Commerce’s cupola.
Photo Xavier Galiana/AFP via Getty
In early June, I went to visit the grand installation by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot set up under the cupola at the Bourse de Commerce. On any given day, the museum’s glass-domed central hall has the hushed effect of a temple or cathedral. The outside world falls ever so slightly away. Boursier- Mougenot’s work compounds this effect.
The artist floated hundreds of porcelain bowls on a circular sky-blue pool 60 feet across that mirrors the dome above; they swirl slowly on the water, swept by a gentle current, and chime softly like bells when they bump. As I walked around the musical pool, Pinault Collection general director Emma Lavigne, who herself can sometimes speak with a not dissimilar, ethereal softness, pointed to other artworks on view in nearby galleries that depict water. Together, the museum’s summer exhibitions reflected a kind of “flow,” she rightly pointed out.
My questions to the museum’s press rep, however, did not. I got a call: The museum had come to understand I had made the faux pas of asking directly for an interview with Pinault Collection president Guillaume Cerutti (until this year the chief executive of Christie’s). As I expected, he had responded by email that he would not comment; but as a result, no one from the institution could speak to me for the story. Plus, the press rep added, any so-called rivalry was a “falsification of reality.” They were equally certain that “the other side” would feel the same, and refuse an interview on the topic.
But by then I had already sat for nearly an hour inside the LVMH headquarters perched on the luxury-brand-lined Avenue Montaigne with Bernard Arnault’s right-hand adviser and head of arts and cultural patronage, Jean-Paul Claverie. Sitting across from me at a table, alone in a bare, white-walled conference room as Paris melted under the pounding heat outside, the onetime adviser to a former culture minister freely answered my questions in French about a “rivalry,” and then some.
“The perspectives of these different collectors is not one of rivalry, it’s one of great curiosity. Meaning, it’s about their respective interests,” Claverie said, referring to Pinault and Arnault. “To each individual personality, his [or her] own dream, own world, own emotion—that’s what’s so great. … The emergence of several different, private arts initiatives in Paris is fantastic. On that score, we can only congratulate ourselves, and the more there are, the better.”
As for any talk of outdoing each other on recent donations to the Notre-Dame Cathedral, Claverie shot back: “Those are absurd comments … stemming from a desire to create a conflict where there isn’t one. … We really worked hand in hand to make the [Notre-Dame] restoration possible.”
In fact, Claverie said that he and his team regularly visit exhibitions at the Bourse de Commerce, and Pinault has come often to the FLV, where Arnault or Claverie himself welcomes him. What both men truly feel about each other, and those visits to their respective institutions, is left largely to speculation by outsiders. So what fueled their initial quarrel?
Their historic rivalry in the luxury sector was famously sparked by Pinault’s surprise purchase of a major stake in the Gucci company, right under Arnault’s unsuspecting nose in 1999, leading to years of lawsuits. (The documentary series Kingdom of Dreams is just one dramatization of the saga from a fashion world perspective.)
After news broke that Pinault’s thennamed Pinault-Printemps-Redoute conglomerate had acquired a 42 percent stake in Gucci, the businessman told French reporters the move was “not against Monsieur Arnault or anyone else.” But when asked whether he had discussed the decision with Arnault beforehand, Pinault famously quipped: “I’m not in the habit of saying, on the day we’re going to declare war, what day we’ll attack and where we’ll attack …”
The two businessmen’s so-called “battle of the handbags” eventually settled in court when Pinault bought Arnault’s minority share of the brand for a €760 million profit in 2001. But cuts ran deep for years afterward. “Frankly, I’m staggered by this animosity. When [Arnault] got Sephora … though I coveted it too, I didn’t get sick over it,” Pinault reportedly told French writer Stéphane Marchand, who reported that in response, Arnault said: “The difference is that I got Sephora fair and square.”
HOW MUCH OF THAT OLD BAD BLOOD remains is almost impossible to tell. Arnault and Pinault certainly share a love of art, and their tastes have converged in the past over blue-chip stars like Mark Rothko, David Hockney, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, and Daniel Buren, to name a few, but they also come at it from starkly different approaches.
View of the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s once-in-a-lifetime Mark Rothko exhibition, in 2024.
©Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko
Pinault is well-known within the French and international gallery circuit, where he’s been a regular for decades, sending his close advisers, such as Caroline Bourgeois, but also going to see shows in person. Dealers say he is eager to the meet the artists, and often ready to support lesser-known creators who strike a chord. “Sometimes, I come across a work that really stands out, a striking masterpiece that seems to call out to me, and that is a very good sign,” he says in a video interview presented in a side room at the Bourse de Commerce. “I experience an intense emotion, something grabs me, calls out to me when I’m truly struck by a piece of work. I’m often taken aback by this intensity, and sometimes feel a little trapped, because I tell myself that I cannot let this work get away.”
From left, billionaire François Pinault, his artistic adviser and collection curator, Caroline Bourgeois, and Bourse de Commerce deputy managing director Martin Bethenod, in the former Paris stock exchange’s rotunda.
Photo Bertrand Rindoff Petroff via Getty
But many were nevertheless surprised to learn the extent of his personal art collection when the Bourse de Commerce opened. “You could see that [Pinault’s] selections were made over a long period, and that there was a real dialogue with the artist, whom he followed and supported. This showed the artist’s trust,” one Paris dealer told me.
I am told that, on the other hand, Arnault, who is a trained classical pianist, is far less of a presence at contemporary art galleries. Over time, and with the help of advisers such as Suzanne Pagé and Claverie, he has built a collection for the FLV that contains “nothing but masterpieces,” per another Paris art dealer. Though the collection’s size remains a mystery, Arnault has a personal love for art from the first half of the 20th century, and particularly Vincent van Gogh, per his own confession to le Figaro in 2018. That said, the FLV collection contains mostly artworks dating from the 1960s to today, and is divided into the categories Contemplative, Pop, Expressionist, and Music & Sound.
“His interest in music, the emotion, the ‘voyage’ of interpreting a piece of music, or listening to it—as he has said, is the same as what one can feel while contemplating a visual artwork,” Claverie said. “Bernard Arnault has always been passionate about that.”
Arnault was for years an outsider to the contemporary art scene, and it took some time for him to be accepted as more than the “cliché of the rich industrialist” who “intruded on the artistic scene,” per Fredet’s book. I found that to be true when speaking to Paris art dealers as well. But his contribution to national museum exhibitions, and then the creation of the FLV, with its unmatched exhibitions, helped change all that. “People talk about what they don’t know,” responded Claverie. “The truth can be found in what [Arnault] gets done—his actions,” he said, noting that for more than 30 years, Arnault has been a major donor to French culture, education, and humanitarian causes. In a further example of his “authentic” approach, Claverie pointed out that the FLV has not sold any artworks from its collection.
Still, at first, opening an art foundation “wasn’t our field,” and “considerable risks were taken,” Claverie said. “You’re exposing a lot.” Even for the massively successful Shchukin exhibition, “everything was set up for it to fail,” but “today, we’re on the map.”
View of “Icons of Modern Art:
The Shchukin Collection‚”
2016–17, at the Fondation
Louis Vuitton.
Photo Martin Argyroglo/Courtesy Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
THE SUCCESS OF BOTH INSTITUTIONS is undeniable, but many have legitimate concerns about what such private museums mean for the future of their public counterparts, as well as their outsize influence on which artists get recognized, and questions about taxpayer contributions to the building of self-promoting private projects.
The duo “are all-powerful,” a wellconnected arts worker told me on condition of anonymity. That might be going too far, but there is truth to her descriptor. It should be noted that several art dealers all but pleaded with me to swear to keep their name out of this story. Fear of consequences to their career was palpable. And as public museums continue to hemorrhage government funding, patronage from private donors such as Arnault and Pinault is increasingly essential, an issue that has many in France fearing for the independence of their storied cultural centers.
When the Bourse de Commerce opened, another Paris dealer told me she was deeply impressed by the extent of the collection but was also left shaken. From the swanky topfloor café of Pinault’s new museum, she could see, as though it were just an arm’s-length away, the Centre Pompidou opposite, now preparing to close for years of renovations. It is a view that was until then unknown to the public. “It was like a terrible blow. Suddenly, we saw the changing balance of power,” she said. Plus, she reminded me that the best and brightest of France’s public institutions were also being poached by private art museums. “We’re emptying the substance of public institutions, because of power grabs by these private institutions,” she said. “It’s not a question of whether or not private institutions will usurp public ones … it’s already the case. What is happening in the Anglo-Saxon world has come here.”
Yet today, you’d be hard pressed to deny that Pinault and Arnault have helped whip the French capital into one of the most exciting cultural destinations in the world. And as the dealer suggested, the reality is such that public museums must work with private donors.
“We need support from these [wealthy] individuals, and it would be tantamount to biting the hand that feeds [us] not to recognize that,” Blistène, the former Pompidou director, said. But he observed that the rise of private museums has also meant public institutions have slipped further down the list of priorities when it comes time to hand out checks. The Louvre and other French museums are historically built on major donations from private collections, so changes to that tradition, Blistène added, “also brought the necessity and opportunity to reinvent ourselves.”
“There are undoubtedly thousands of ways for similarly wealthy individuals to manifest their interest for social … and other causes of various kinds,” he continued. “Both [Arnault and Pinault] wanted to build these absolutely extraordinary foundations, and in a certain manner, anticipate what we’ve seen manifest today: a complementary, friendly relationship between public authorities and private entities.”
Other major collectors and private initiatives figure in the mix too: The Fondation Cartier is opening a new location this fall opposite the Louvre, near the Bourse de Commerce. And Laurent Dumas, the president of French real-estate developer Emerige, is set to open a new private art center on the Île Seguin, west of Paris, next year.
Yet many fear this comes at a cost to taxpayers. Speaking to ARTnews by phone, professor of the science of management at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, Jean-Michel Tobelem argued that taxpayers should also be kept out of financing private museums that enjoy “priceless” branding and marketing benefits for the luxury labels they directly or indirectly symbolize. When the FLV was built, LVMH businesses reportedly benefited from €518 million in tax deductions out of more than €800 million spent between 2007 and 2017, leading to a legal complaint that was eventually dismissed, and virulent backlash from many who argued that Arnault should have declined such a generous payback, since his conglomerate could afford to front the full bill. “Why should the French taxpayer contribute indirectly to the financial participation of a business activity that is clearly promotional?” Tobelem asked.
“Like any responsible organization, we work within the framework of the regulations to make sure we are efficient,” Claverie explained later, in writing. “Our approach makes it possible for us to support the arts on a broad scale. [FLV] plays a key role, but it’s just one part of what we do for the arts. For example, in the past two years alone, as part of our support for museums, we helped the Musée d’Orsay buy Caillebotte’s Boating Party and made a major contribution toward the Louvre’s acquisition of Chardin’s Basket of Wild Strawberries.”
LVMH paid $47 million to acquire Gustave Caillebotte’s A Boating Party (1877–78) for the Musée d’Orsay in 2023.
Photo Leemage/Corbis via Getty
It should be added that both Arnault and Pinault declined to accept tax benefits from their donations to the reconstruction of the Notre-Dame. A sign of a lesson learned?
“Bernard Arnault always had in mind—and it was what we talked about when we met— that the economic success of these maisons [LVMH luxury brands] … can build bridges with the artistic and cultural world,” Claverie said. “Part of the success of our maisons must be given back to culture in general, to artists, and to the public,” he added.
Meanwhile, at the Bourse de Commerce, I’m regularly reminded that the museum is not a foundation, and therefore doesn’t benefit from a corresponding tax break. Pinault himself made this point at a 2017 presentation about his then-forthcoming Paris institution, in what was seen at the time as a jab at his competitor. “The role of the state is not to finance a foundation,” Pinault said.
At the same time, by keeping his museum essentially a private enterprise, Pinault maintains full control. This includes the ability to deduct depreciation from taxable income, but also to sell artworks more easily, which he’s controversially been known to do. The sale of several pieces by Adrian Ghenie about six months after they were shown in Pinault’s Venice space is an oft-cited example. Another is the sale of artworks by Damien Hirst after Pinault mounted a massive double exhibition dedicated to him in 2017 at the collector’s two Venice spaces. Many see a conflict of interest as well in his ownership of Christie’s, which facilitates sales.
Both men can also thank the French government’s support for at least a good chunk of their success. Government policies helped them acquire bankrupt or failing businesses under the condition—not always met—that they maintain workers’ jobs at the newly acquired enterprise.
Pinault, born in Champs-Géraux, Brittany, to a family of modest timber traders, dropped out of school at age 16, and after serving in the army during the Algerian war, began working in the family timber business. In 1962 he launched his own timber-selling company called Les Établissements François Pinault, and began showing his talent as a shrewd dealmaker. He acquired other timber and related companies at low cost, which he was known to turn around after drastically reducing staff. He soon expanded to the department store Printemps, and the mailorder company La Redoute, and formed the group Pinault-Printemps-Redoute, later renamed PPR, and eventually, Kering.
Pinault founded the family holding company Artémis in 1992, to which he transferred his 42 percent share of PPRturned- Kering. He added other high-end brands, including vineyards such as Château Latour in Bordeaux, Christie’s, the soccer club Stade Rennais FC, and the magazine Le Point. In 2003 he handed over the reins of his business empire to his son, François- Henri Pinault, one of his three children from his first of two marriages, who is married to actress Salma Hayek. Under his son’s leadership, Artémis moved further away from wood trading and retail operations, into luxury fashion.
More recently, François-Henri bought a majority stake in the Hollywood talent agency CAA. (Arnault soon after created a new studio, 22 Montaigne Entertainment.)
Born in Roubaix, Bernard Arnault grew up in northern France’s upper-class milieu, thanks to his father’s small northern French construction and civil engineering business, then called Ferret-Savinel. After attending the elite École Polytechnique engineering school in Paris, he began his career in his father’s company, and by the mid-1970s, reoriented it toward tourism real estate. In a landmark opportunity, he acquired the struggling French textile group Boussac in 1984, which included the Christian Dior brand, then heavily in debt, as well as the Bon Marché department store. He too laid off thousands of workers and drastically pared down the brand’s assets, selling off all the other brands in the conglomerate, except the two companies he prized above all: Dior and Bon Marché. Dior—a brand beloved by Arnault’s mother—became the cornerstone of his strategy for building the world’s largest luxury conglomerate, numbering 75 brands. To get to that point, he took over a series of prestigious labels in some controversial but perfectly timed moves that included ousting former top executives.
The Arnault family’s holding company, Agache, established a tech-focused venturecapital firm called Aglaé Ventures in 2017. Prior to that, Agache (as Groupe Arnault) had supported such start-ups as Spotify, Netflix, and Airbnb.
AS FOR THE NEXT GENERATION, Pinault’s three children from the first of two marriages appear less interested in the arts, but his grandson, François Louis Pinault, the son of François-Henri, recently joined the Christie’s board. Meanwhile, Arnault’s five children are all involved in LVMH, and appear greatly interested in art and the future of the FLV. His eldest daughter, Delphine Arnault, chairperson and CEO of Christian Dior Couture, is particularly invested in contemporary art and artists, and serves on Gagosian gallery’s board of directors. The family is known to be close to Larry Gagosian himself, but rumors that Arnault was poised to buy the gallery from him have been firmly denied.
Delphine “comes from a famous family. But that doesn’t have anything to do with me and her sitting around talking,” artist Mark Bradford said, speaking to Vogue for a story that sketched out an artist and art-filled dinner hosted by Delphine.
On the topic of succession, and looking ahead to the not-so-distant future, I asked Claverie if the two art and luxury empires— Pinault and Arnault—would ever consider working together to create a project of their own. “We don’t forbid ourselves anything, and anything is possible,” he said. “Art has no boundaries.”
