Can't afford a Lichtenstein? How about a brooch?
A passion for contemporary art led Diane Venet down a different collector's path: collecting jewellery by artists.
Diane Venet does not wear jewellery. She wears art. As the world’s leading collector of artists' jewellery, she is the owner of 200 pieces, give or take, by 150 modern masters: everyone from Pablo Picasso to Alexander Calder and Jeff Koons to Jenny Holzer.
Venet, a former radio and television journalist who lives in her native Paris with her husband, the sculptor Bernar Venet, has made a life of collecting jewellery made by some of the 20th century’s most prominent artists. She bought her first piece, a brooch by the pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, for $US3 at an exhibition of the artist’s work. Today, it would sell for upwards of $US5000 ($7500) – not that Venet intends to part with any of her much-loved items.
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