{"id":1625,"date":"2011-10-24T11:17:09","date_gmt":"2011-10-24T10:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/preprod.gmtmag.com\/?p=1625"},"modified":"2016-06-17T16:02:38","modified_gmt":"2016-06-17T14:02:38","slug":"laurence-graff-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gmtmag.com\/en\/business-n-en\/interview-2\/laurence-graff-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Laurence Graff : Chairman of Graff Diamonds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"contenu_article\"><strong>Since when?&#8230; and what sparked your interest<\/strong> I first began by collecting Impressionist art\u2009; one of my first purchases was a small Renoir which I acquired in the 1970s, and kept in a safe amongst my diamonds.\u00a0 With that purchase I promised myself I would acquire one Impressionist painting a year.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s your finest memory\u2009?<\/strong> I became interested in Contemporary art after visiting galleries and museums, and reading about the artists.\u00a0 My first Contemporary purchase was Francis Bacon\u2019s Portrait of Lucien Freud, that I acquired in London for \u00a3700!\u00a0 Needless to say it is worth much more today.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Of which piece of art are you most proud\u2009? <\/strong>My favourite thing to collect are \u201cicons\u201d. I have two pieces by Andy Warhol that I especially love, Red Liz and Lavender Marilyn. All three are true icons.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Favourite museum in the world\u2009?<\/strong> I sit on the Executive Committee of the International Director\u2019s Council of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the International Council of the Tate Modern in London, the Berggruen Museum in Berlin; I am also an International Trustee of MOCA in Los Angeles, and have very recently joined the Board of Governors of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.\u00a0 All these incredible institutions are very important and close to my heart.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>How does this passion influence your professional life\u2009?<\/strong> Art, especially contemporary art and young artists, is incredibly inspiring.\u00a0 I set up my foundation, The FACET Foundation, in 2008 to give back to the countries from where we source our fabulous diamonds.\u00a0 In 2009 we hosted a charity art auction at Christie\u2019s featuring the top contemporary artists to raise money for FACET, and on 24 November 2011 we are hosting a second auction of exclusively South African art at my<br \/>\nvineyard, Delaire Graff Estate, in Stellenbosch, South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>What achievement would you dream of\u2009?<\/strong> To continue<br \/>\nto source the most beautiful and rare diamonds in the world, and to continue to find and support new, young artistic<br \/>\ntalent.<\/div>\n<p><\/br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Since when?&#8230; and what sparked your interest<\/strong> I first began by collecting Impressionist art\u2009; one of my first purchases was a small Renoir which I acquired in the 1970s, and kept in a safe amongst my diamonds.\u00a0 With that purchase I promised myself I would acquire one Impressionist painting a year.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s your finest memory\u2009?<\/strong> I became interested in Contemporary art after visiting galleries and museums, and reading about the artists.\u00a0 My first Contemporary purchase was Francis Bacon\u2019s Portrait of Lucien Freud, that I acquired in London for \u00a3700!\u00a0 Needless to say it is worth much more today.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Of which piece of art are you most proud\u2009? <\/strong>My favourite thing to collect are \u201cicons\u201d. I have two pieces by Andy Warhol that I especially love, Red Liz and Lavender Marilyn. All three are true icons.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Favourite museum in the world\u2009?<\/strong> I sit on the Executive Committee of the International Director\u2019s Council of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the International Council of the Tate Modern in London, the Berggruen Museum in Berlin; I am also an International Trustee of MOCA in Los Angeles, and have very recently joined the Board of Governors of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.\u00a0 All these incredible institutions are very important and close to my heart.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>How does this passion influence your professional life\u2009?<\/strong> Art, especially contemporary art and young artists, is incredibly inspiring.\u00a0 I set up my foundation, The FACET Foundation, in 2008 to give back to the countries from where we source our fabulous diamonds.\u00a0 In 2009 we hosted a charity art auction at Christie\u2019s featuring the top contemporary artists to raise money for FACET, and on 24 November 2011 we are hosting a second auction of exclusively South African art at my<br \/>\nvineyard, Delaire Graff Estate, in Stellenbosch, South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>What achievement would you dream of\u2009?<\/strong> To continue<br \/>\nto source the most beautiful and rare diamonds in the world, and to continue to find and support new, young artistic<br \/>\ntalent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":1623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[41],"tags":[314],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gmtmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gmtmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gmtmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gmtmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gmtmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gmtmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15654,"href":"https:\/\/www.gmtmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625\/revisions\/15654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gmtmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gmtmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gmtmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gmtmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}