John Richardson died on 12th March 2019. We are sad to have lost a friend with such great talent and intelligence. "I am still obsessed by Picasso." The wind is blowing on a very cold New York winter day when I arrive in the downtown 5th Avenue building where I am...
You are Director of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, where you have now been for seven years. Can you explain why the Kimbell is such an important museum? There are three factors that make the museum important internationally. First there is the...
The Music and Energy of Poems. Why is "Widening Income Inequality" the title of your new collection of poems, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and coming out in America now? The title is used with some considerable irony. It is a very common phrase, used by...
How is it to be back at the National Gallery, now as the Director? Thrilling, after 13 years away. I have been devoted to the institution since I was a child and it is very exciting to be here at this moment. Why? First of all the sheer beauty and quality of the...
Allegra Hicks is the designer and face behind the eponymous international luxury lifestyle brand that is recognised around the world for its beautiful textiles and prints. Were you a designer before even knowing it? I think that all of us creative people have...
Sir Norman Rosenthal is an independent curator and art historian. How long have you been living in London’s Soho for? First I lived in St. James’s, and then I moved here in 1989 when I got married. Did you know Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud? They came to the Colony...
What inspired you to launch your new magazine Cabana? What inspired me was on one hand a passion for the visual world, and on the other it was a great feeling of the type of world that was about to become mainstream visual inspiration. I clearly did not invent...
The art of the auctioneer. Simon de Pury is one of the leading figures in the art market. He is renowned for his legendary performance on the auction podium and for his deep and longstanding knowledge of the global marketplace. What was your experience of early life?...
"Gardens are really a drop of paradise on earth." Among his many public and private projects, the leading contemporary gardener and landscape architect Louis Benech was commissioned to reshape the Tuileries public gardens which are located between the Louvre Museum...
The Interview with Letizia Treves, Curator of Italian and Spanish Paintings 1600 - 1800 and Head of the Curatorial Department of the National Gallery in London, took place at the National Gallery Café, in a quiet corner where we ordered two Espressos. Letizia was very...
A project to revitalise Italian art. You are the President of the Rome Quadrennial Foundation... Yes. It is an institution that was started back in 1927 to promote Italian art. Because there was already the Venice Biennial, it was deemed necessary to create an event...
Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in London. Since July you are the new Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in London. How come you made this role your choice when you are a well-known and active photographer? Photography was and is something too...
My biodynamic Barolo is like my child. Director of winemaking for the Ceretto Winery. Alessandro, you are part of the third generation of Ceretto wine producers who have been making wine in the Langhe area of Piedmont since the 1930s… Yes. My grandfather Riccardo was...
'Opera' - The New Collection of Buccellati Jewelry. Andrea, you are President and Creative Director of Buccellati jewelry. Why did you exhibit your new collection called 'Opera' for one evening at Spencer House in London, and why did you give it this name? The name...
Alberto Burri, The Trauma of Painting. Professor Braun, you are the guest curator of the large Alberto Burri retrospective “The Trauma of Painting” that has just opened at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Can you describe this long journey of yours? I was...
“Going to Galignani is like going to the Ritz to have tea instead of having a takeaway.” Danielle Cillien Sabatier manages the renowned and historic Galignani bookstore in Paris. In Venice in 1520 the Galignanis were among the first to use the printing press to...
"Chic is the right nothing." Mario Testino, you have spent the last few days in Lima, Peru, but don't you usually live in London? I have lived for many years in London, but nowadays I travel a lot; in order to accomplish my work I need to be constantly on the go....
A very special pop-up shop at the Academy Mansion in the Upper East Side of New York. The characters that I interview are Marie-Amélie Carlier, who is the owner of the Galerie Brimo de Laroussilhe, and the other person is Alessandra Di Castro, and the other two are...
Nicky Haslam is founder of the London based interior design firm NH Design. A Lucky Life How would you describe yourself? I suppose I am stupidly fearless about doing things. I don’t panic if somebody says to me, “Do you sing?” I wasn’t panicked about going on stage....
Colin B. Bailey is the Director of The Morgan Library & Museum. He was Director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, before that Deputy Director and Chief Curator at The Frick Collection, and he is a specialist of 18th-19th century French art, especially...
“I’ve gone from top models to beautiful homes.” In the early 1980s, photographer François Halard worked for Decoration International in Paris. Then Alex Lieberman, the art director at Condé Nast, called on him and he moved to New York. In May 2011 I asked him: How did...
"I made portraits of Lady Gaga from classical paintings in the Louvre’s collection. Her interior sense became her exterior expression." I arrive in the Watermill Center. Bob Wilson is expecting me in his industrial reconverted building where he lives, where he has his...
"If you don’t like the system then you invent your own." Julia Peyton-Jones is Director of London's Serpentine Galleries, located in the elegant landscapes and architecture of the Royal Park, Kensington Gardens. The Serpentine Galleries now comprise two separate small...
"We are living in a post-mortem period of art." On the 5th July 2011, Cy Twombly died in hospital in Rome at the age of 83. On the 20th July 2011, Lucian Freud died in London at the age of 88. Two great artists – Cy Twombly and Lucian Freud – have both recently passed...
Yto Barrada, photographer and filmmaker: “My look at a changing Morocco” You are famous as a photographer as well as for other things. What else do you do? I am also a sculptor and filmmaker. I showed a film at the Venice Biennial, at the Arsenale, which was chosen by...
“I would like to heal the world with a smile.” Roberto Cavalli lives on a large property in the hills outside of Florence, in a large farmhouse that has been transformed into a country palazzo with additional bedrooms and spaces, which is a common occurrence with...
"Architecture is becoming a popular art form." It's April 2012 when I ask the architect Massimiliano Fuksas: Have you just won a competition to renovate a luxury shopping centre in Beverly Hills? Yes. Right now it’s a bit shabby, not on the same level as the products...
“Fellini taught me how to dream.” Dante Ferretti is a three-time Oscar winning Italian art director and production designer. His work with directors from Fellini and Pasolini to Gilliam and Scorsese has earned him an array of industry awards and nominations. Ferretti...
I speak to the artist Luigi Ontani while dining on taglioni pasta and truffles in a restaurant and inn run by a man named Benito, a few kilometres from the town of Grizzana Morandi. Why are you doing an exhibition this summer in Grizzana Morandi, a small town in the...
Amanda, Lady Harlech is one of the fashion industry's leading authorities on style, enjoying a successful career as a consultant and muse to Karl Lagerfeld. For years you’ve worked closely with Karl Lagerfeld, the famous designer behind the Chanel and Fendi...
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Money Must Stay in the Family
The plot of Money Must Stay in the Family, unfolds around the family matriarch’s last will and traces the story of an upper class Jewish family from Turin, the fictional Ottolenghis. The multigenerational saga begins with the flight from Mussolini’s Racial Laws of 1938 and continues with the arrival in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and the dispersion from New York to Rome, Paris, Tuscany, South America, and Jerusalem.
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