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Collector profile: Marie-Magdeleine Lessana

Contemporary Art | » I only feel good around artists. » In a winding genealogical landscape where castles and titles pass from one generation to the next, Marie-Magdeleine Lessana shares an affinity for art inherited from her grandmother, Marthe de Savignies, an anti-conformist aristocrat, close to poets and artists.

Marie-Magdeleine Lessana devant ’’Rouge plasmique’’ de Jean-Pierre Bertrand © DR — 1 / 3
Marie-Magdeleine Lessana devant ’’Rouge plasmique’’ de Jean-Pierre Bertrand
© DR

Origins

For the young Marie-Magdeleine, this luminous character is a « beacon » in the sombre and austere childhood her parents dictated. She only has access to the bare necessities, money is carefully counted and artists are considered « freeloaders ». The black sheep in a brood of seven children, she is constantly scolded, deprived of amusements and denied access to contemporary works. She secretly copies Vincent Van Gogh reproductions, and this intimacy with the structure of his stokes is liberating. She continues her emancipation through the study of advanced mathematics and « attempts at painting » ; she becomes a psychoanalyst and writer, author of the bestseller « Between mother and daughter : a ravage ».