Up Close with Hans Peter Keller, Head of Swiss Art
It was a dot, a single missing dot in the signature of Swiss painter Félix Vallotton, which made Adrian Weynfeldt, the Swiss Art specialist of an international auction house, realise that the painting, recently consigned by one of his oldest friends, was a fake - sounds like an auction thriller and in fact it is: The Last Weynfeldt, the novel by Swiss writer Martin Suter. And Adrian Weynfeldt … is based on Christie’s Head of Swiss Art, Hans-Peter Keller.
Did you inspire this literary character?
Yes, in some ways. Suter called me up one day in summer 2007 wanting to know everything about me as material for his book. We had long conversations about Swiss art, the art market and the auction world. He wanted to get a realistic picture of the auction process. The book will be adapted into a film now.
Will you be starring in the movie?
I have a cameo role as a porter, so do look out for me when it comes to the big screen!
Will there be a Vallotton in your next sale in Zürich?
Yes. Amongst the leading lots of the Swiss sale on 7 June 2010 are works by Ferdinand Hodler, Giovanni Giacometti and Rade de Ploumanach (1917), one of the most impressive landscapes by Félix Vallotton.
Are your sales all about those three giants of Swiss art?
No, we offer a wide range of works by Swiss born artists or artists who spent most of their artistic career in Switzerland spanning over three centuries – from Henry Fuseli to contemporaries like Pipilotti Rist. In our next sale we have a section dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Kunsthalle St. Gallen consisting of a group of 26 works donated by contemporary artists, which will be sold to benefit the preservation of the internationally acknowledged St. Gallen exhibition space.
In 2008 we sold the most important work by Peter Fischli and David Weiss ever presented at auction: the installation and the iconic short film The way things go (1987), one of the most viewed contemporary art videos of all times.
While the Swiss market is a consistent one, we are really detecting an increasing demand for Swiss contemporary art and seeing a new generation of buyers joining our sales.
Having headed the Swiss art sales for nearly a decade now – has there been an experience, which you would call your most memorable moment at Christie’s?
My first Christie’s sale was in March 2002 and it was in that sale we established a new world record for a painting by Ferdinand Hodler. It is still a very emotional and memorable moment for me. But if I had to single out the most outstanding experience then this would clearly be the discovery of a formerly unknown painting by Giovanni Giacometti. The work was Maternità (1911) which made a world record price of 3.2 million Swiss francs in December 2007.
The moment I saw it at the consignors’ house I realised that it was the one of Giacometti’s series of portraits of his wife and children - considered to be lost for many years. No photograph of Maternità had survived, it was recorded without illustration in the catalogue raisonné, and the only hint we had of it was a sketch in Giacometti’s personal work register. For the verification of the signature I took the painting to Giacometti’s youngest son Bruno, who will be turning 103 this year and is depicted in the painting as a baby held in his mother’s arms. He was very moved to see it after so many years. To find something, which was believed to be lost, is this kind of a once in a lifetime experience and it’s why I enjoy so much what I do.