69
FIG. 8 (above): Mask collected near Zuru, Nigeria.
Ewa and Yves Develon Collection.
Photo © Alain Lebas.
in particular, as they have done for forty years. The Désir
d’art (Desire for Art) exhibition, on view until May
12, 2019, pursues this goal as it traces their paths as
aesthetes and dealers, revealing the motivations behind
their collection.
THE BIRTH OF A PASSION
Yves Develon likes to defi ne himself as an “art afi cionado”
rather than a collector. Indeed, while destiny
seems to have set him on a path leading to African art,
his sensibilities could have guided him elsewhere. “I
think,” he says, “that if I had gone to visit the Papuans
of New Guinea, it is their art that I would have collected!”
1 His fi rst encounter with African objects took
place in the fi eld. In the mid 1960s, while he was a
consultant on an administrative board, he was sent to
Côte d’Ivoire to work with its ministry of Planning and
Development. Develon bought his fi rst two pieces in
Abidjan: a small and elegantly simple Dogon granary
door (fi g. 11) and a Baule fi gure. While relatively
modest, these objects constitute the fi rst manifestations
of the powerful passion with which the couple’s collection
has been imbued ever since.
Beginning in 1972, and still within the framework of
his professional activities, Develon sojourned in Cameroon.
Like other French and Belgian collectors such as
Jacques Kerchache and Philippe Guimiot,2 he discovered
the then little-known aesthetics of East Nigerian
sculpture in Fumban. At that time, he acquired several
important pieces which would become the foundation
for a collection oriented toward the arts of the Benue
and Cross Rivers as well as the Igbo area. These purchases
in Africa were complemented by others made
in Paris from dealers or at auctions. For Develon, this
was a vital period of personal and professional transitions
that had a determining effect on the course of his
life. “A path of sensibility and spirituality that words