Interview with Shchukin's grandson. Why did Sergei Shchukin calm his inner hell with the paradise of Gauguin and Matisse?

At the opening day of “Shchukin. Biography of the collection”, the grandson of Sergei Shchukin, charming and unusually “lively” in communication, André Marc Delocque-FourcoFourcaud was the busiest speaker. The grandson resembles his grandfather in his passion for painting, which his contemporaries admired, his facial features and thick eyebrows. Andre-Marc speaks Russian with an accent, but emotionally, sincerely and figuratively. His story about his grandfather, Sergei Shchukin, is fascinating. He is a screenwriter, and for the last thirty years of his life he and his wife have been promoting the legacy of their grandfather, and it was thanks to his research and hard work that a large-scale exhibition of the Shchukin collection in Paris at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in 2016-2017, and now in Moscow.

In numerous articles about the collector, no one touches on the question of why Shchukin, who grew up and worked in a conservative environment, began collecting the most daring art of his era? The artist’s grandson told me about his vision of the reasons for such a visionary choice. There are two of them - "observation" in his business (weaving industry) and tragedy of family life.

At the exhibition at the Pushkin Museum. A. S. Pushkin, the entrance and the central hall of the exhibition are decorated with Shchukin’s fabrics. To a modern viewer, these calicoes and their prints may seem naive, but at that time they became revolutionary. Shchukin made these beautiful and bright patterns and fabrics available to wide sections of the population. In an interview, Shchukin’s grandson emphasized that collecting was not an activity “out of boredom” for his grandfather, but a logical continuation of his nature and business. In an exclusive comment TheStatusSymbol.com André-Marc Delocq-Fourcauld answers the question:

Sergei Shchukin had the taste of a visionary collector. In your opinion, what influenced the formation of this taste, besides the observation of the eye and innovations in the field of his business (the weaving industry)?

Of course, his personal life, namely a tragically broken family, failed family happiness, the death of two children and his wife, gave impetus to zealous collecting. Time passed since these events, and Shchukin became a passionate collector. During this time his eye became “fiery”, "bloody".

From the hobby and entertainment of an important boss who decorated the estate with paintings and organized home concerts and ran a business, collecting became an outlet. From a “showroom” with paintings, collecting for him turned into "passion", the only way to calm the inner hell with the paradise of Gauguin and Matisse.

Exhibition “Schukin. Biography of the collection" will be held at the Pushkin Museum. A. S. Pushkin from June 19 to September 15, 2019.

The general partner of the exhibition is Sberbank. The strategic partner of the exhibition is TMH.