Meet Eric Mourlot. For onwards of 152 years, Fernand Mourlot (Eric’s grandfather) has been synonymous with the resurgence of lithography – a process which under his influence, attracted the greatest artistic masters of our time. The medium provided a new avenue of expression, a new realm of possibilities for the likes of Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Miró, Braque, Dubuffet, Léger, and Giacometti to enrich their own work as well as fine art in general. As a child, Eric Mourlot participated in the printing process, soon becoming enthralled with his surroundings in the printshop. It became a source of inspiration for him, quickly igniting a passion for the relationships and collaborations that took place between artists, printers, gallerists, and publishers. Today, 164 years later, Mourlot continues to promote the art of publishing and printing that his family pioneered. Stay up to date on everything Eric has going on at https://www.mourloteditions.com/, Today, Eric is talking art everything with Craig, enJOY!
When I do live gigs around the country, I'll be honest with you. I sell T shirts and swag to the folks who are there, and then people always say, can we get this wag without sitting through a whole evening of you. Well, it's happened. It's finally here. You can buy Craig Ferguson merch on the Craig Ferguson Merch website and you can buy it for yourself or someone you hate or someone you love. For more information and link to the web store, please go to the Craig Fergusonshow dot com. That's all lowercase, the Craig Ferguson show dot com. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness. This episode is a conversation with Eric Murlow, which if you are any way attached to the art world, you will know exactly who he is. And if you're not, then you're about to find out Eric Murlow.
Full disclosure ary.
You're French, so that that's going that's not going to be an issue, but it's very much part of our story today.
That's right, Well, the Old Alliance though you're.
Scottish, Scottish and French, that's true. You know why though, It's because they were Catholics, That's right.
I think, at least I think they were Catholic originally until they killed your queen.
Now, who killed the Queen Mary, Queen of scott She was French, though, isn't She's yeah, she.
Was Catholic, and so Elizabeth made sure that. That's right.
But Elizabeth was English, that's right. Okay, But that's what we're not talking about this. They were talking about the we're talking about your the story of the Merlau family from wallpaper makers in the nineteenth century to being a dynamic force, a dynamic force eric in the twentieth century, masters.
As well.
Let's start, okay, So who started making that? Your family began making wallpaper in Paris in the eighteen fifty two, eighteen fifty So it's just it was like it wasn't an artistic in day. Well, it was artistic in the sense of wallpapers.
Right, yeah, but it was commercial, You're right. I mean, we were doing also wine labels, chocolate labels, ledgers. Eventually, my great grandfather, who was the son of the previous owner. Right he started he bought, i should say, a print shop that was printing those geographical maps that you're had at school, that you would pull.
Tool down maps in the world, right and during colonial time, so everything said either France, Breton or exactly this is French and this is British. So what happened then? Who made the change into the birth? Because it was the birth of the lethographic is lethographic movement? Is that a movement or is it a.
Well it's a medium, right. It was started in Germany by Cenefelder in the mid eighteenth century, right, so just about a century before, and it was the easiest way to print color.
Right, So talk me through. Imagine, I don't know what a lithograph is right now. I'm not saying I don't, but imagine I don't. Imagine you're talking to someone who doesn't know what a lithograph is, or what it would be, or what or how it came about.
What is a lithograph? It's actually a really funny story. So this gentleman Cenefelder was trying to find a way to reproduce his plays in a cheaper manner because before then you would have to go to a printer that would do topography, right, like Guttemberg. Right. And he was trying to find a way to publish his works. And I think his wife was serving him some kind of soup, some fatty soup outside on his limestone table, right, And suddenly he discovered that after he had washed the table, the soup had been spilled. And he washed the table, he started putting the paper in. He had a zinc He spilled some of his ink, and the ink actually was stayed in the areas that had been previously absorbed, had absorbed the grease from the soup.
Oh, so this was born of a drunk playwright spilling his soup.
And then got all right, I better get out of it and whine and well, okay, good. He made his fortune actually from lithography, not from his writing. Well, what is it? Then this happened? So it's really based on the repulsion of water and grease. So the grease basically that is absorbed by the lithographic by the limestone. Right later on we'll be able to retain the printing ink. All right, So once you have the ink on the stone that's been retained in the areas that have been drawn by the artist. Then you ply the paper and you apply pressure and the ink is transferred from the stone onto the paper.
So it's kind of like a print, right, yeah, right, but it's a stone printing blog exactly right. And so how does your family get involved in this? Because this starts the invent this German bloke invents a new form of printing, right, and.
It's got its heyday really in the late well when we're basically doing it commercially. At that point you have a lot of artists like Chere and Toulusula Track, right, and all these muka that are artists that are doing these big big posters posters, right, like the mul Rouge posters that you got Trek was doing and that was that was lithographs, then, yeah, absolutely it was lithographs. And as a matter of fact, when John Ford does his movie Mulla Rouge, the studio where Tulusla track at work does not exist anymore. So he came to do it at our studio and he took over the studio and there are several scenes where Jose Ferrer is in there and pretends to be work king in our studio printing his lithographs. Oh right, So what happens is is your grandfather, is it, your grandfather, your great grand my grandfather.
Right, so your grandfather decides I'm gonna get in touch, I'm gonna use this lithograph stuff that we've used for wallpaper year.
So his grandparents, his grandfather and his father. By then, we have about four print shops. They are two in Paris and two in the suburbs. We did. We ended up losing the two in the suburbs because the railroad took it by eminent domain. They needed the land land grab right exactly so, and then basically World War One takes place, and my grandmother passes away, my grandfather dies, and my great grandfather sorry dies in nineteen twenty one. Right, so my grandfather and his brothers and sisters take over the studios. And my grandfather had gone to the decorative of art school in Paris called the Al Decartif, and he's the one that basically started bringing all the artists over there. Does he know Picasso and those guys from that time? So he knows some of the artists like Matiz had taught at the school that he went to. He knows Braque, he knows some of the people, but he doesn't he knows some of them from his regiment in World War One because he did really four years, so did his brother actually right, and we lost one of one of the one of the brothers did die during the war in the war. So he he he comes back from the war and he had known he had met lege actually in the war for no Ja, but mostly he ended up knowing some of the people that worked for the National Museums and they put him in touch with the artists. So he had an idea. They were at lunch and they were complaining that they were not getting enough traffic in the museums. They said, well, you know, we're putting bylines in the paper and people are not coming. But that's because it's not visual enough. You should do what theaters used to do. Make prints, print of the art that's on display, put them all over the streets of Paris, and just advertise your exhibitions.
So where did the where was the idea born that an artist would create lithographs as just a piece of art. I mean, the idea is that an artist like Pocastle. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking that I say, Pocastle creates an image that is going to be printed on limestone, right, and then you print out a bunch of lithographs. Then you destroy the original piece of limestone, and then these pieces are numbered and they're like original pieces, is that right?
So it really started with etchings, if you're talking about Durera and Rembrandt, So we're talking back in the sixteenth century, right, they were interested in etchings and doing these works, so prince, so they would go to the printer and they would say, listen, you give me a copper plate, you pay for the paper, you pay for the ink, right, I'll do the work and then we split it. We have artist Bruce and we have Printerspruce. Right, it would sort of be fifty to fifty.
Re brand did a ton of those, right, I mean, like back in the day, and at least we're done in copper plate, exactly right.
Okay, And rehn Brand probably did his Durera, I think used more craftsman to help him do his, right, But they're all, you know, they're all.
So if you if you have a Rembrandt eitching, I mean, it's not going to cost you a ton of money for a rem brand edching depends which one right, But say say you have as the self portrait, the famous self portrait of rembrand rem Brandt.
If you use an etching of that, what would that be? It depends. It depends on if you have the one that was printed in if it was printed in the fifteen hundreds. What if you go it was sixteen hundreds, if it was printed in the seventeen hundreds, or if it was printed the eighteen hundreds. All right, I'm asking for a friend.
Well, if you go one in Target, if you I wouldn't Target and it went on Alex Nice or Rodeo and Rodeo driver or on Rodeo drive.
Yeah, whatever it would be, it would be fine. So who started the idea?
Because there was a thing like Picasso was doing this, that he was making lithographs.
And then adding to them once they were done. Right, So he hadn't had such great luck. He had tried it in the twenties before even my grandpa got to know him. We knew him through printing posters for the museums, and so he hadn't really he might have come to the studio, We're not really sure at that point, but he was working with other printers, and he didn't like it, so he dropped it. And it's not until probably was after the war. It's like nineteen forty five. We had worked already for Matisse and Brock and other artists before the war, and then the war, of course was quite complicated look at it. Yeah, and then it's not until nineteen forty five where basically he is interested in doing it again. And it's because Picasso, because Brock and Matista tell him, listen, you should really try to go see more low. He's different than the other ones. He'll let you, he'll give you more leeway. And I think that's the thing with my grandfather. He was able to let the artists do what they wanted in the studio. He gave them more freedom that a lot of the other printers. You know, when it was four o'clock, everything had to be locked up. You left everything there, and then after that you go home. But the employees go home and everything. My grandpa was basically willing to say, I'll send a couple guys to bring you whatever you need in your home. Because you know, Picasso came the first time he came, the first day he started working at like noon, and he didn't stop until eight pm, right, and all the employees were like, uh.
Time, come on then, sir, let's get out of there. No more square faces out your cup. When you were a child growing up there, you run into all of these people, is that true?
Well, I mean in the fifties. I wasn't born in the fifties. Yeah, dies in fifty four, so I can't really say. And then I you know, I was ever did you ever see his ghost? Oh? Not because he died in his home, but when I was giving a lecture at at this museum which is in your neck of the wood, at the National Gallery in Edinburgh. Oh yeah, that's famous. Yes, it's quite a beautiful building. Yeah it is. Yeah. And it was a show of Picasso's works on paper and.
You were given the lecture. I was giving a lecture. Very swanky, Eric, that's that's like you're like a proper art guy. I mean, you're like really arty.
I don't know. You want to ask the little old lady in the first row that probably had just you know, finished a couple of pints and she was like falling asleep. But well that happens to everybody, So that happens advice, so was Eric. But it was really interesting and and and so I was telling them, you know a lot of these stories about how you know Picasso and actually Percassa was a lot of fun to work with. But he was basically taking all these things back home and working on them, and then in the morning, my dad, my grandpa would send someone to go pick it up.
So net brown A, Pocasso says, and get that stuff and bring it around and we'll print it.
Yeah, and then well Pericassa would show up probably around you know, one o'clock or you see.
That's where I think Picassa was going wrong. He was, you know, the sleeping in every day he would get much more done, but he was working until three four in the morning. Yeah, okay, I wonder why that is a strange man by all the kinds they say.
Oh yeah, so my my joke when I was at the oh yeah, yeah, sorry, well it's not really, it's not really, Joe. I'll let you, I'll let you do the fun. No, come on. So I usually basically put a picture up at the beginning of the lecture of Picasso and my grandfather on the beach holding me as a baby, and I'll start by saying, you know, as you can see, Picasso and I had many very intellectual conversations about art and put on pump and eventually, once I take that out, we can discuss. Basically, they understand that I'm just repeating the stories that my grandfather and my father told me, because really, I was three years old when you passed away, really when Picasso passed away. Yeah, but I mean, I mean, I'm good friends with Poloma. I was friends with also Agilo his Olmah's mother, his ex partner. Yeah. Were they ever married, No, never married. They had two kids. Clode right also unfortunately passed away also last summer. Oh dear, and they were together for about ten years, and she also worked with us. She was one of the future. I think she was probably the first woman that came to work at the studio. She's a pretty impressive customer, was she.
She was she kind of look maybe I'm I'm talking to turn here, but she wasn't particularly uh enamored with her time with Picassa, was she? She She felt like it was a very kind of restrictive relationship for her.
Is that right? But that is that? Yeah? I mean she was really she's she was an incredibly sweet woman. I owe her a lot. When I got a second divorce and I was really bummed, she caught me up. She said, Eric, you don't even know what a sociopath is. I was with one for ten years, let me tell you. But but on the other hand, she was a sociopath. You think, well again, you know I was three years.
Well yeah, I'm not. I'm not talking about personal experience. But but but the but the idea that you know, I don't. I don't mean you you you know, the people involved, you know, the circles I do.
I it's hard. Also, what is a sociopath? Yeah, that is you know, I was sort of thinking about that. There's a lot of different kinds of them. As a matter of fact, artist a lot of artists are at least narcissistic. Well I think that, but some are more narcissistic than others. I go into sociopathy, but he said, by the way, sooth sociopathy? I don't know.
And the thing is, I I, you know, I can only talk about it so long before I start thinking about myself. So I but I don't I think that it's you know, it's a buzzword right now as well. It comes in a broad spectrum of different things. So he's a very complicated man. And but first of one, she Lowe is a very gifted artist herself. I've seen some of her what it is amazing.
She's incredibly talented. She was incredibly she was a great lethographer. Also, she really did a lot with us. And my grandfather was the only man or the only business person that was allowed to still work with her because you know, once she left Picasso and she's the only woman who ever left Picasso. Once she left Picasso, that was it. He sued her for her book. He tried, he tried to he tried to Harvey Weinstein her. Oh my god. It was like, yeah, she was he was trying to cancel her, Oh my god. So even his dealer, Conviler right was not allowed to where he called Fonso, I'm very sorry, fan Swas, but you know, obviously I cannot work with you anymore. And she couldn't have really dealers working with her, but my grandfather for some reason, and that's why I think fal So has always said your your grandfather. With his you know, he had a profile of a Roman senator. He was able to sort of finesse it, and Picasso was totally fine with him continuing to work with her.
I have a theory about this as well that I think because your grandfather is an alpha personality himself, as Picasso is right, and your grandfather also has the He's got a lucrative wallpaper, but it doesn't need Picasso in the same way that the other people need because he's still living off of them. It's like if Picasso walks, doesn't matter. He's still his business. He's still independently, you know, wealthy.
He can do his thing. Am I right? Yeah. The only thing is, uh, the funny bet about that is we always say in the family, you know when we say why, you know, why did this person come? Why did this? Oh? Well, because we were the best printers in the world. And you know, I think we're more realistic than that, because I think my grandpa once said, you know, the thing is, we printed Picassos so everybody wanted Yeah. Yeah, I mean they did like Mirror, they did, like Mereau, they did like Metist, they did like all these other famous Henry Moore. We even it wasn't just Kerwin in England. We actually printed also Henry Moore in Grham Sutherland, and a lot of you know, Marino Marini, so artists from everywhere. Chagall especially because what we did in World War two. Shagall when he came back from New York only printed with us. What did you do in World War two? So we my grandpa helped a lot of our colleagues that were Jewish and that had print shops, and and we also printed a lot of fake papers.
Oh really, so you printed fake ideas for their resistance and stuff and for people to get out, right, because the Nazis were were very funny ideas about art, didn't they. The Nazis are they? I mean, obviously you know there's the anti Semitism. But the idea that they they talked about modern art is being degenerate, right, but they were collecting into yeah, of course, because they were pragmatic as well as evil. But they had this they what was that exhibition they had in Berlin. It was I think it was before the war. It was the Degenerate Art Exhibition or something, and they showed all they were showing Picasso's and modern art and a gallery next to you know, proper as they said, Teutonic art.
Which was like, you know, stags and rehatos and stuff.
And everybody went to see the degenerate art. They're like, oh, boobies, where do you come down on your p taste? Where do you find yourself drawn more to modern contemporary pop art?
Or you a traditionalist? So because you're an art dealer, right right? Yeah? So yeah, for me, listen, I'm not one to tell people what is art where they should like, you know, art is basically an expression of someone, you know, someone's thoughts and feelings, usually through creative mediums. So it could be music, it could be words, it could be you know, visual anything, right, So who am I to tell people what is good and what is not? I know what I like. Well, that's that's more of what I mean. What are you drawing? Yeah, so I'm drawn to I'm very Catholic in my taste, and I don't mean that in religious way. I mean I'm really open to a lot of things, and I like certain classical Aboriginal art, for example, is really interesting to me, and it was interesting to Matisse and Picasso. And what I like is that these people kept on renewing themselves. Not crazy about see, I think there was some interesting pop part in the sixties. I think that some of it a little ridiculous though, and I think unfortunately it was supposed to be kind of like a small closet, and people made it kind of a big pathway, and now it's that closet is getting really packed with people that don't know what they're doing.
Well, I think, you know, Andy bears a sentiment of responsibility for that, for saying stuff like, you know, are what you can get away with and like, no, no, Andy Warhol is not. Although I have to say, if you've been in the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
No I haven't been.
It's sensational, yeah, you know, the thing is about it as well. It has all these Andy Worl pieces in it. But the most Andy Warhol, the most Warholing in part of the whole place, is the gift shop. Like this is this is exactly where the epicenter of Warhol is an advertising Yeah it is. He was a graphic designer, right.
Yeah. And so by the way, the thing that's interesting to me is, you know a little bit and it kind of relates. My taste relates a little bit to what you do in the sense that if I have to see one more political piece of artwork, or if I have to see one more sort of commentary on social whatever, right frankly, right now, I'm a little tired of it. That's interesting.
So art is that is like art that is being made and sold right now in New York City there, I see, I'm not really aware of current working artists. All the artists I know or are dead, and I've been dead for some of them, the ones I like, I'm be dead for quite a long time. But are artists working there with kind of like look out for Trump, Joe Biden's horrible, that kind of stuff that people are doing that, Yeah, I mean probably more the first one. Yeah, yeah, I thine, you know.
You see a lot of that. And I'm not only just talking about that. I'm talking about these pseudo social commentaries on today's society and consumption or whatever. And I'm looking at it, I'm going, that's exactly what you are. Yeah, I'm not really making a non moral judge about it. You're at least make a moral judgment about it.
It's funny because sometimes the esthetic attraction of art can supersede the political I mean, if you look at some of those old Soviet posters.
They're like, they're amazing that the scope.
There's a there's a statue in Moscow the Heroes of Space, the Soviet Heroes of Spaces, the most amazing statues I've ever seen.
But that is propaganda. Well yeah, but I mean the Nazis certainly understood. Yeah they did, that's true. But for example, I like when Phrenology walks into the Matist Chapel and vaunts in the south of France. He goes inside the chapel and he looks and he says, Matis has invented the religion of beauty. Oh okay. And so this is interesting because it's the end of Metisa's life and suddenly he's become closer to his religion, his you know, he becomes he believes.
Well, that's inevitable. I think if you live long enough, you start kind of going.
I'd like to get in.
Well, it's not even so much that, it's the more of the kind of you know. I was talking to someone else about this today. I sually that C. S. Lewis said, the thing about death is a horseman who's easy to ignore when he's you know, two valleys away and just a figure on the horizon, but when he's close enough for you to hear the hoof prints, you may change your opinion. And and I think that that that happens to people as they go older. Has it happened to use your older you started to be a bit more? I mean, am I hearing those?
Do you hear the hoose? I'm not much younger than you. Careful? Do you do you find that does your taste in art change? Does it become? Yeah? I think it does, right, it does absolutely. I think that there are certain things. I mean, I will always love because I'm very optimistic, and I find it very joyful to Fornolge's work is to me happiness because it glorifies the working man, It glorifies industry. It looks set the world that we live in as optimistic people got you know they now in France they were able to have paid vacation, paid holidays. So you would see these workers with their bicycles those as.
Well, didn't they There was RAPHAELI who was He was in the first French Impressionist exhibition and then he was kicked out because he would draw like like a lovely scene. But he was the guy that the absence drinker exactly right. But he did the he would do like a lovely scene but also maybe a factory on the edge of it, stuff like that. They're like, no, you kind have factories and French Appressionism. I liked him too, Yeah, but that those things when you get movements like that, like Impressionism for example.
Who wasn't there was It wasn't the guy with the garden. What's his name? But mo name? He was the kind of boss, wasn't he.
Yeah, I mean because I think he had an argument with Raphaeli and kicked him out.
He's like, get up, you get up? Yeah. No, It was kind of like, yeah, his his thing. But there was, you know, and there was some interesting interesting relationships. I say, there were older artists and then younger artists, and then some of these artists ended up going into Fauvism or something different after Fauvism is kind of la Mank and Matisa. At the beginning, there was a great show and Durant. There was a great show at the met that just I think it just ended. And it was Metisa and Durant in Coulio, which is a little town in the Mediterranean, right, and they basically paint with these very wild colors, these these it's it's a little bit like Sarah in the sense that you have it's not dots, but it's these like patches of color. So it comes from the Impressionism. But then you have these really bright colors. So when they do each other's portraits, that might be green and red, and so everything is kind of connected, interconnected. Actually a little van goes as well. There is a little bit of everything. You know. Listen, they all look at each other and look at you know, I mean the father of the art is that Picasso looks up to probably the most, and he looks at everyone of course, right, but I think the one that he really loves the most is Seisan. And Saisan to me, is very much like Bach is to music. There's no jazz without Bach, right, there's no modern art without saysan Sisan. Because of the way that he applied the pain to the cantry, it is really the beginning. He just really takes everything upside down and it just really reinvents everything so that he opens. He's one of those watershed moments. So he allows Picasso to start doing Cubism.
For example, what situation or what is it like in the art world now because of a lot of the personal lives of the artist who are still selling for bas sums of money, Picaso being one of them, have them come under scrutiny of the lens of modern sensibilities, and people get upset about me because the treatment of women is not you know, it's not a stalar story. It's not great, you know, and the other artists behavior. Does that affect a piece of value in modern no?
I think for for a couple of reason. Unfortunately, I think that there isn't one art market, and there isn't one art pillar of the art market. Right. What I do I find is getting smaller and smaller, which is to deal with with actual collectors or museum collections. But even then it's very difficult to get material nowadays. What happens is there's a lot of tax evasion, there's a lot of money laundering. There's a lot of these things going on.
But buying art is a way to hide money. Yeah, absolutely, that's in speculation also, well yeah, but I mean that I think a lot of people think like that, Like, well, I wonder if my grandpa's portrait I found in the attic is worth a million, you know.
Yeah, but I think you know again, and and that's why probably I'm still happy. By the way. I mean, most art dealers have you know, are famous for successful art dealers are famous for having no sense of humor because they're mostly the ultimate con artists. Really, you're not a con artist.
One of the nicest people I've met in New York, which is a little bit right, but they still let no.
But I think this is not I think that the business has changed tremendously and we're no longer talking about just building collections for people that are really truly madly in love with art. We're also manipulating money. And so the problem is I made a conscious decision that I cannot deal with these people.
So is there a because I feel that sometimes when I look at where I don't hate the single letter, because look, an artist is an artist, But when I look at the work of Jeff Coons and I think, what the fuck is that? You know, I mean that like it's like a balloon animal. It doesn't make any fucking sense to me. Jeff Coons is a very nice person. See, I'm sure he is. The that's I don't know Jeff Coons. But I do yeah, oh do you Well, I'm terribly sorry, but I don't own anybody right wisely. Well, no, the thing is that there were tons of money. I look, a lot of people disagree with me. People, but they're all that stuff. They're amazing contemporary artists, even if they are, you know, for example, contemporary are I'm just like but I don't, I don't.
Know, I get it. And that you have, for example, amazing artists and sometimes like Cecily Brown, I think is an amazing artist English English artists, but you know she was at Goegosi and of course she started selling for huge amounts of money. That doesn't take away from the quality of her work. But to go back to what you were saying about how do we judge Picasso? Well, you know what, how do we judge history? I mean, that's alway, that's something that just keeps on happening. And and now we were going to go back and we're gonna look at history, and no, there's no issue, for example, with Harvey Weinstein, because that happened yesterday. You're right, so we know that guy was a monster. He's a monster. Now I don't know of any situation really where Picasso raped anyone. No, but he was certainly you know, false, I said, he was certainly psychologically abusive.
I wonder it's an interesting thing because, of course, if you're talking about the manipulation of art and the manipulation of history. You know, Orwell's famous, he who controls the past controls the present. Right, So if you can write a new story about an old about an old story, you can manipulate it into the presence. So, for example, if you want to devalue or revalue a piece of art, maybe you can tell a new story about about the artist. I sometimes think about. You know, if you take the most expensive art in the world is probably Van Go right, you know, Starry Knight or something like that, like a ridiculous amount of money, more money than anybody has. Now, if you say Van God probably probably was mentally ill in a way that nowadays we would treat chemically. We would say, look, you know, you take you know this, Zacha Pazen, and you'll feel a lot better. And he probably would felt a lot better, and his art would have changed. And maybe as you look at Starry Knight, no, I'm just I'm fucking around here, right, but maybe as you look at Starry Night, you're enjoying the mental illness of a man who's in anguish. So therefore you're a monster and you shouldn't enjoy that art, and we should rethink how we look at it.
Now.
I'm not saying we should do that, but I'm just fucking around with the idea of it.
No. Absolutely, And for example, Edgar Allan Poe was drinking absent but right, the thing is he also had alcohol allergy, so it could have just one glass of wine and then you know, you see what he was writing about all these murders.
Or the painter of Hieronymous bosh Yes, who was the Garden of Earthly Delights, where the like horror and this is the thirteenth century, things like you know, monsters and you know, guys with faces in their bodies and crazy stuff.
He apparently, I don't know if this is true. That what I'd heard about it was.
They used to like to paint for long periods of time. And he would take this rye bread and go to a shed at the end of his garden. But the rye bread he was eating at the time, after a couple of days, it forms a little mold on it, which is a lucinogenic. And so after a couple like he's starting to First off he'spent, oh, paint a meadow, and you know, here's God, obviously because it's the Middle Ages. Early Middle Ages want to paint God. And then after a time he's like, oh, going to a ride. Did you never think about painting yourself?
I did. I tried, you know. Picassa sorry not Percassa Moreau bought me a box of paint when I was six years old. Nice. And that weekend I went back to our country house with my grandma and my grandpa and my uncles and aunts, and I took my little box and I disappeared while everybody was meeting, and I started a mural in the kitchen. Oh they did not amuse anyway. Six year old stuff did not amuse anyone. And and so both my kids have done that, and that box disappeared. But my grandma was not into that at all. Yeah, and uh, and I realized that I absolutely had no talent. Oh, come on, it's six years old. How can you make that decision? I don't know. I got yelled at enough.
Yeah, all right, it's funny that though, if you think of a family, which is so I mean your your godfather is Alexander Calder, for God's sake, Yeah, I mean that's a Do you remember him?
You know, so I was a little bit older than than with Picasso, but it was I was still sort of in you know, before I was ten years old. So I have great pictures. Yeah, I have a few pieces that he signed to me. One of them is actually the at uh Cafe Blue, the new restaurant that oh yes we went to the other night. Well we went to the other one. But and so I Danielle asked me to loan him a few pieces. So I've put some some Lige, some Calder. A lot of them are signed to me or to my grandfather and so so I I do have some of these things. But I do remember him being, you know, this mountain, this sort of Irish mountain with big bushy eyebrows, and but he was really sweet and really nice, and he loved kids, and you know, he did all these amazing circus. There's a great movie that that was at the Whitney, and I think it was another museum around here where he did this entire circus with a little wire and everything goes into each other.
The Whitney, Yeah, it was printed these little bits of paper. Fantastic.
Everything is sort of like this giant He just made this gigantic little circus with all this and and it really artists.
It's interesting to me, the world of the artistic world, particularly in New York. I did not grow up in it, and but I will happily walk through it unaffected by it because for me, it feels to me unaffected is the wrong word, not intimidated by it, because it seems it seems to me a little bit like the world of fashion, or indeed show business, which is it's only dangerous if you take it seriously, but if you don't take it seriously, it's quite interesting and fun.
Right. So, but there's a lot of money involved in all of these things. Well, but I think that's not what makes it important. Okay. I feel definitely older than fashion. I mean, I'm art.
It starts a very attractive turtleneck. You're thank you, No, you you're talking about art is older than fact. I don't know if art is older than fashion. I don't know if I agree with that.
So, you know, you have the guys in the caves start painting right what they wear? Enough? Boy, they were well I don't know, that's what was it? McQueen, Yeah, I don't know. But anyway, so art by the way, some fashion is art. I will not deny it totally. Yeah, I was saying McQueen for example, right again, I don't think that McQueen is someone who did it for the money. The same with Vivian Westwood. She created created a movement. I mean, punk rock is Vivian Westwoods in creation.
The idea that it's something to do with music came later with with Malcolm Malcolm and Vivian Westwood for sure, but mostly Viviane Westwood.
I prefer Malcolm's music. Yeah, well yeah she wasn't you know, she has a different scent. But yeah no, but you see that to me and all the punk movement, that makes sense. And I think that's what we're missing nowadays, is we have a lot of famous artists that are in these stables of big galleries, but they hardly really see each other. The print shop was amazing in that way, is that you could have have in the studio in Paris, and in the fifties you could have Matis, Picasso, Brock, Mirro Cocteau, any of these writers, actors would come and visit them chanare you know Ali Ti. All these different people would come and you know, Gary Cooper went to visit Picasso in the South of Francs. There was people were meeting each other.
Yeah, go to Vidal used to have that thing that salon environment house in Italy as well, that people would go there. And I wonder if the idea behind it that is digital, that people that people do it digitally. But I suspect no.
I think it's very difficult because it's very tactile. Yes, you're there and you really see and and the beauty of the print shop is it was a neutral ground. It wasn't somebody's studio, right, So they would go and visit each other like sometimes, you know, Picasso would go visit Matise. Sometimes you know, they would go to each other's homes. But this was great because they could go work and they had a little different booths like this, so just a little bit larger than this. We had about six or seven of them on the third floor. The printing presses, the large printing presses, were on the ground floor. There were some offices on a mezzanine and then they had those booths, and they all had the trial proof presses that were on the same floor, so they could go try different colors, rework on the stone erase, add do all that stuff. Then they could go at lunch time across the street to the little it was a little Italian we said, get little Italian restaurant. Though right, not much to ride home at the beginning, But because quickly everyone saw that all of these famous started. By the time we closed the studio there and moved it somewhere else. The guy owned the entire block. It was called the Chateau Brion, and it was like two stars and it couldn't have happened to nicer people. It was Jean Fondo, a really nice gentleman and so and he had quite a nice collection. But I think that he did with all these guys going, oh, you need to draw you this for lunch. No, they never did that. No, no, really, they really didn't they And naturally Brock always said, for example, he said, no, I'd rather spend twenty thousand francs in flowers, but I live off of the artwork. So if they give you something, it's because they really love. So it was a personal thing. Then it was nice.
I think the idea, you know, going back to we were talking about these artists all being in an unutral environment, it also creates a place where speculation is possible in conversation. And I don't think that that's that's possible digitally, because if you write something down, there's still this idea that you, well, you must believe that, whereas if you say say, say hey, maybe and then you say something like I don't necessarily agree with this, but you speculate, you think out.
You can't think out loud.
Think it loads not not a lowed, it's kind of a Is there a political correctness in the art world now that artists must be weary of? Must they must they protect their public personas is there is there a kind of branding you've got to be careful about?
I think I think so, I think, and I think there's a fake outrage, and I think there's all sorts of you know, I think that everything is very much calculated. And I think that when they try to be wild, and you know, they try to be you know, the ones that are not politically correct, they're extra politically correct. So like guys like I'm trying to think of. You know, like I saw a Banksy to me, is you know, totally politically correct. I guess it is, isn't it. It seems to have a polemic about it and a kind of yeah it does. It's interesting as well, the banks you thing, because it's like the acceptable face of it. It has a which was when it started, it was absolutely real. You know, you you actually couldn't go and buy the the Kansas of Spray when you were living in these village. There were places in the East Village. I lived in the East Village also, not at the same time, but close to it. But you know, cops would actually come and and you know, stock the people just to make sure that you know, you couldn't. They would arrest people.
Yeah for tagging. Sure, yeah, yeah, you can't be doing that. I remember the East Village in the in the eighties is very different place than it Isn't that it was seventh and see please, Oh my god, it was. It was a wild time, I think, I mean, my memory is so lazy, but I think I think it was a little wild.
It's funny.
I was in the restaurant the other night and the manager I came over and she gave us a free deserve.
I was like, oh, that's great.
Why she said, I remember you being the dormant saved the robots the club in the village. I'm like, you really remember that the robots?
Oh my god, that is crazy, that club. But at least kicked me out of there. I wasn't the dormant.
I was there at the door, kind of going, I'm part of this, but any acts of violence. Word, I was not qualified for enery of that. But like Vin Diesel, he was a dormant. He was like a hey, get out of here.
I wasn't. Ever he's a big guy.
He's a big guy, and he works out and stuff and you know, takes care of himself. No, I do that a little bit.
But see I would have gone to you with like a fifty.
Oh yeah, easy that you're read. Oh you go, that's about fifty you kidding me? A cigarette? But I got you fine. So what is the future that of the art world? Have you?
Do you think about that? Yeah? I think it's cyclical. I think that, But like everything else, I think we're at a point where everybody's divided. Everything is like oh yeah and everything and everything. Yeah, yeah, So there is going to be some kind of reckoning. I mean, it is unsustainable the way it is right now, because thankfully a lot of the great art is in museums, right but if they don't have money to stay open, and some of them are in financial trouble, not all of them, and a lot of them have a lot of you know. But for example, in France, if you think that the major museum art museum in Paris, which is the Pompidou right now, it has quite a large administrative budget, but its acquisition budget for the whole year is two million euros. What the hell are you going to do nowadays with two million euros? So that's why, and you cannot as a you know, wealthy such as Bernalo or Pino, all these people they've they've started their foundations because they don't get a tax break if they give to a national museum.
Oh right, so we don't have that in doesn't have charitable state, does not have charitable state, does it doesn't America though, right, Yeah.
In America it's much better, and so that's why museums are still and also yeah, you can actually really deduct from your taxes and and it's very it's part of the fabric of the United States.
It is, actually that's true. I mean they're they're every time you go to uh and I go all over the place. Yeah, there is always something and some of the times, like Louisville, Kentucky has an amazing contemporary art scene.
It's it's like, I don't know why I didn't think it because it wasn't done yesterday, it was done several decades ago. Detroit, you know, Detroit was incredibly wealthy, of course when you had all the car companies that are just roaring. So yeah, so what will you do then? So I think what I'm trying to do is completely different. I'm trying not to really be in that in that sort of well, I'm not in the same kind of world. The idea has always been for me to be a good steward to my family's history, right to organize exhibitions to continue. You still have a lot of these pieces, then, I have, Yeah, I have quite a few. I also have collectors that are entrusting me with their collections. I may not have a large Picasso print collection anymore because because I unfortunately got divorced several times, but I'm familiar with that. I figured and and but I do have a beautiful one that we've been traveling through the country, right, and uh, and I have other exhibitions, and I have all the shows. And the idea is to be a good steward and whatever we can make out of that. I reinvested with young artists that I believe in that I feel are not getting the chance to really show their work in other places, and hopefully at some point people will will pay more attention to them and and they'll feel attracted. I mean, but then again, it's you know, it's very much my taste.
It's funny though in the in they are they are world as well, because you can be unsuccessful until well after you're dead, and then your career can really take off.
Right, But then again, how do you qualify success? I mean, I'll know I'll never be a billionaire because if I take all the money that I make with this and I put it back with these young artists, it doesn't I'm not going to get money. But yeah, but the only thing as well is that I see a though I'm still very successful. Yeah, it's funny.
The success is a very antizing definition because the the idea that like who you want to be Jeff Bezos.
I know, clearly no disrespect to.
Jeff Bezels, but I don't want to be you, you know, none at all, certainly not Elon Musk.
Yeah, no, none at all.
I mean, like, do you want to be It's interesting, I think, you know, it's like, well, i'd be all right if I had their money.
You don't really have already, are they. I don't. I don't want that, Okay, as long as I can buy a Scotch pack of cigarettes and your friend.
Scotch cigarettes, cheese wine, I need, geez, a bit of wine, some nice conversation.
But I like working on projects with artists, and so I work with a lot of printers here. But while we don't print ourselves anymore, I still have a few presses in a warehouse in case I ever want to reopen a print shop.
Oh, like King Arthur for the Britons, when you're called again, you will stop the presses again, start the presses. Eric, there's something that sounds quite like it's time you have to start the presses. We have to print giant pineapples and put them all over the world to calm everyone.
Do exactly, but you know, truly again a little less politics, a little less religion, more love. I think the world needs more love. I can't argue with that. We got to get out of here High