When, after having led Christie’s in France, I bought from my father in 2004 the gallery he had founded 33  years earlier, I had only one goal in mind:  

Art Basel!  

Between 2005 and 2011, every year, with candor, hope, and perseverance, I submitted my application.  These seven rejections added to the previous nine that my father had struggled to accept.  

Sixteen years! And then, in 2012: “Feature”! With André Masson, 1934–1944! I did not sell a single  painting. All, or almost all, continued their journey on loan, in monographs, group exhibitions, or museum  retrospectives around the world.

2013, 2014, 2015… Nothing more! Neither “Feature,” nor the general section (known as “Galleries”)…  nothing at all! Only “No’s”! Polite, of course, but still “No’s”!  

Nineteen rejections, and then, for 2016, a “YES”! Or rather, a waiting list, and finally, in December 2015,  THE “yes”!  

In 2026, we will occupy a large stand on the ground floor’s prime perimeter, that “magic square” which long  seemed out of reach to me, and for which I can no longer recall the last purely French gallery to have held  such a space.  

As a tribute to my father—who passed away in 2011, shortly after having been happy to learn of our  selection for “Feature”—we will take advantage of the space offered by our new location to present a special  hanging around our stand, entirely dedicated to six museum-quality works by André Masson, all from the  historic period 1934–1944.  

Franck Prazan