In 2012, as an advisor to Karuizawa Peynet, I visited the Antibes Municipal Peynet Museum on the French Riviera in the South of France.
Peynet Museum in Antibes, South of France ↓
My company (Adeka Co., Ltd., formerly Galerie Adeka) operated a gallery specializing in French paintings called "Galerie Vent de France" at Karuizawa Prince Shopping Plaza and Karuizawa Prince Hotel for 20 years, from 1995 to 2015.
Galerie Vent de France at Karuizawa Prince Shopping Plaza
Galerie Vent de France was sponsored by the French Embassy.
Bernard Renaud, Economic and Commercial Counselor at the French Embassy, and Yasuhiro and his wife ↓
In 2010, at the request of Masahiko Koyama (current president of Prince Hotels), who was the General Manager of Karuizawa Prince Hotel at the time, we held a lecture at Karuizawa Prince Hotel to promote Karuizawa as an international tourist and conference city. At that time, the tourism industry was in a recession, and Karuizawa Prince Hotel was setting new lows for occupancy rates outside of the peak season.
Hisanori Isomura, former NHK news caster and first director of the Japan Cultural Institute in Paris, Yoshiyuki Matsuda, president and chairman of Shobi Gakuen University, Professor Inuzuka, a student of Mr. Matsuda's from Jissen Women's University, and I held the first Karuizawa International Resort Conference lecture with the four of us.
The discussion was lively, with talks about places like Davos in Switzerland, famous for the Davos Conference where top-class politicians and businesspeople from around the world gather, and Aspen, a high-end cultural resort city in the United States. The first conference was held at Karuizawa Prince Hotel. The following year, in 2011, it was held at Manpei Hotel, under the umbrella of Mori Trust, where Miwako Date (current president), Managing Director of Mori Trust, officials from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, staff from the Nagano Prefecture Tourism Division, and Masahiko Koyama (current president), General Manager of Prince Hotel, gave lectures.
Hisanori Isomura and Galerie Adeka Yasuhiro Takeda ↓
Each time, Mayor Fujimaki of Karuizawa Town also attended, creating an atmosphere that energized the entire town, and the Karuizawa Resort Conference Promotion Committee (Karuizawa RCC) was established, with Karuizawa Town also deciding to allocate a budget to the Karuizawa RCC.
The Peynet Museum in Karuizawa is located within Taliesin, a comprehensive cultural park centered around Lake Shiozawa in Karuizawa. Besides the Peynet Museum, Taliesin also houses the Karuizawa Kogen Bunko, which collects manuscripts by writers who lived in Karuizawa, and a flower museum. It's a tourist attraction in Karuizawa where you can enjoy yourself for about half a day.
Peynet Museum inside Karuizawa Taliesin ↓
I became somewhat known in the Karuizawa area for planning seminars and speaking as a panelist to attract international conferences and tourists to Karuizawa. Taliesin has a Peynet Museum, and since I am the world's leading collector of Raymond Peynet's original prints purchased from his publisher, Mr. Murre, I was asked by Taliesin in 2012 to visit the Peynet Museum in Antibes as an advisor to the Peynet Museum.
Statue of Peynet's Lovers in front of Karuizawa Peynet Museum ↓
In the fall of 2012, I first met Director Goujon of the Peynet Museum in Antibes (to be precise, the Raymond Peynet and Humorous Artists Museum) and Raymond Peynet's daughter, Annie Peynet, and we exchanged views.
At that time, the only Asians visiting the Peynet Museum in Antibes were Japanese. (Currently, Peynet is famous in China and Korea, and it seems there are more Chinese visitors than Japanese, according to Director Goujon in 2019.)
Both Director Goujon and Annie Peynet welcomed me enthusiastically and proposed a sister city relationship between Antibes and Karuizawa Town. Since both the Peynet Museum and the Picasso Museum in Antibes are municipal museums of Antibes, and Director Goujon is a city employee, he was to propose this matter to the city of Antibes. I also believed that progress would be made, as the family of Mayor Susumu Fujimaki of Karuizawa Town manages Karuizawa Taliesin (Peynet Museum).
In front of Raymond Peynet's original prints "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter" at the Peynet Museum
Annie Peynet ↓
I returned to Japan with the proposal for a sister city relationship between Karuizawa Town and Antibes as a souvenir and reported it to Taliesin (Peynet Museum). However, I received an unexpected response. The response was that the mayor could not pursue a matter that would be advantageous to his own managed company. As the mayor is a public official, he cannot use his position for private gain. Since the reasoning was sound, I had no choice but to accept it.
Karuizawa Town, being a villa area, has high land prices, so a lot of fixed asset tax comes in. I've heard that Tokyo and Karuizawa Town are the only municipalities in Japan that do not receive local allocation tax. I've also heard from others that Karuizawa Town discusses tourism policies, etc., but doesn't really take them seriously. It seems to be a laid-back municipality because it's a wealthy one.
When the Abe administration came into power in 2013, the economy recovered and a tourism-oriented nation policy was adopted, causing a sharp increase in the occupancy rate of Karuizawa Prince Hotel. Prince Hotels, Inc. went from a deficit to a significant surplus, and no one talked about making Karuizawa an international resort and conference city anymore. Masahiko Koyama also became a Managing Director and General Manager of Prince Hotels West Japan, and moved to Kyoto.
Our company also shifted from retail to wholesale in 2015, and the Galerie Vent de France at Karuizawa Prince Hotel closed, withdrawing from Karuizawa.
Although the sister city project between Karuizawa and Antibes did not advance, the exchanges with Director Goujon of the Peynet Museum in Antibes, Peynet's daughter, and the Karuizawa Peynet Museum continue to this day.
In the future, together with the Karuizawa Peynet Museum and the Antibes Peynet Museum, I hope to invite many people to the world of love and peace art by Raymond Peynet, born in 20th century France.