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having been in existence for a very long time, are
a source of works that may, since they were collected,
have followed complex, confusing, and
surprising vectors that Pierre takes great pains
to reconstruct. A deep investigation sometimes
needs to be undertaken in order to retrace an object’s
peregrinations. He is not satisfi ed with just
a stated provenance or even a printed reference
in some catalog or article. Pierre requires verifi
cation and in-depth information. Signifi cant
surprises can result from this process, which becomes
useful when the objects in question are
presented for sale at auction and are poorly or
incorrectly documented. All of this is a lot of
hard work, but the engine for that labor is an
insatiable curiosity.
Over the course of the many years he has been
active, Pierre has relinquished and sold many
top-quality artworks, even a number of masterpieces,
which have found homes in some of
the world’s best and most important private and
public collections. They constitute a corpus that
majestically illustrates the unfolding of the career
of a “great discoverer,” as Charles Ratton
once called him.
At the same time, Pierre kept certain objects
when he could and built a personal collection,
which, by virtue of its quality, has ultimately
achieved international notoriety.
Since the 1970s, he has been among those
collectors who are systematically solicited, both
from Europe and the United States, for loans
by the organizers of exhibitions at the most important
institutions that today champion and
promote the traditional arts of Africa—and
more broadly what Félix Fénéon liked to refer
to as les arts lointains, or “the arts from afar.”
A few of the most signifi cant general exhibitions
in which Pierre’s objects were seen side
by side with those of the world’s major museums
were: Arts premiers d’Afrique noire, Brussels,
1977; “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art,
MoMA, New York, 1984; Africa: The Art of
a Continent, Royal Academy of Arts, London,
1995; Mains de Maîtres, Brussels, 2001; and
Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic
Sculptures, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York, 2011.
Works from Pierre’s collection are also often
sought for more specialized shows and publi-