A collector’s 'mystical' connection to art benefits a Swiss museum

As a scout in Paris for the Swiss Galerie Beyeler, Jean Planque had a reputation for being able to spot great art. He became friends with Picasso and…

As a scout in Paris for the Swiss Galerie Beyeler, Jean Planque had a reputation for being able to spot great art. He became friends with Picasso and bought works for his own collection as well as for the gallery. His collection has now returned to Switzerland after a couple of decades abroad. Jean Planque, scout for the Basel-based Galerie Beyeler, had a gift – an eye for art. Standing in front of a painting, he would sometimes start to cry.

“It was mystical, it was religious,” says Florian Rodari, the conservator of his collection, now held by the Jean and Suzanne Planque Foundation. “He questioned a painting; he asked it to give him a response.” Based in Paris for two decades in the mid-20th century, Planque became friends with artists including Jean Dubuffet, Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti.

His personal collection of more than 300 artworks – among them, works by Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Paul Klee and Georges Braque – has recently returned to ...