The Jean Planque Collection. The Story of a Collector

For this inaugural exhibition, works from the collection of Jean Planque will occupy the entire Musée Jenisch Vevey. Visitors are invited to trace the successive chapters of this remarkable collecting adventure: the earliest acquisitions, still strongly influenced by the example of Paul Cézanne; the discovery in the 1950s of contemporary non-figurative art and the decisive encounter with Jean Dubuffet, which momentarily unsettled the collector’s firmly classical convictions; and finally, the essential friendship with Pablo Picasso, whose trust played a key role in the early success of the Beyeler Gallery.

While working for the gallery between 1954 and 1972, Jean Planque encountered numerous artists who were still little known in Switzerland at the time, including Sam Francis, Simon Hantaï, Henri Michaux, Antoni Tàpies, Mark Tobey, and the Mexican artist Francisco Toledo.

The exhibition highlights the coherence of the choices made by this self-taught painter, who—almost unconsciously—assembled the works he would himself have loved to paint.

Curated by Florian Rodari, President of the Jean and Suzanne Planque Foundation, and Maïlis Favre, Curator.