Galerie Adeka and Michel Henry
My company was contracted to produce a calendar featuring French artists for Onoda Cement, a cement company with its headquarters in a rural area, and in 1993, I went to France with a person in charge at Onoda Cement to search for artists to use in the following year's calendar. This project began in 1989, at the height of the bubble economy, so we had plenty of budget. Among the many artists we met, we also met Michel Henry. He is a master of the French art world, having graduated from the Beaux-Arts in Paris, and is a recipient of the Legion of Honor, and is the president of the painting department of the French National Horticultural Society and the vice president of the Salon d'Automne. He is in the same class as Bernard Buffet, and is said to have had a great influence on Buffet in terms of painting. He is a famous painter in France and the United States. In Japan, a French art dealer named Marc Estelle was handling some of his work at Daimaru and other stores. He produced a lot of lithographs and serigraphs, and they were also sold in Japan.
I was extremely nervous when I knocked on the door of Michel Henry's studio, guided by a French female art dealer. A large, solid, middle-aged gentleman welcomed me. He was polite and cheerful, so I felt a little better. In the room, there were pictures of President Chirac and his wife, pictures of Swedish princesses, former prime ministers and their wives when they visited the studio, and even a picture of the great actress Jeanne Moreau in front of Michel Henry's paintings in the collection. I was worried whether they would take me seriously when I told them about a calendar for a cement company with its headquarters in a rural area, which I came from Japan. As the French female art dealer talked to me, my tension gradually eased. She talked more about me than about the calendar. She said that she studied at a university in the south of France, did her master's degree in Paris, is passionate about her work as an art dealer, is a big fan of France, and loves Michel Henry's paintings, and she was promoting me. As she listened, Michel Henry began to smile at me from time to time. She started to ask me about my work. Knowing the French character, I didn't delve too deeply into work-related matters, but talked about my memories of my student days and my connection with France. I also praised Michel Henry's paintings quite a bit. Michel Henry looked at me with a happy face and said, "I'm glad that you've helped to popularize French paintings in Japan. I thank you on behalf of all French painters." As our visit was drawing to an end, we decided to talk about the calendar and have her consider it.
After meeting with all the artists we had planned on, the Onoda Cement representative decided that Michel Henry was the best choice. We had a sufficient budget. After returning to Japan, I contacted the female art dealer and asked her to move things forward. About 10 days later, she contacted me and said OK, along with Michel Henry's comments. "Mr. Takeda's French is difficult to understand because of his southern French accent, but his enthusiasm for French paintings and culture is incredible. What an art dealer needs is the ability to fall in love with an artist's work. That's what he has."