HISTORY
Léon Wanson founded the Wanson Group in Belgium in 1949. A visionary in his time, his avid interest in technology made him focus on the great innovations of the moment. His dedication and energy allowed him to rapidly expand to France, Italy and Morocco, becoming present in thirty-nine countries over the following years.
With the desire to perpetuate the legacy of the Wanson family, in 2008 Art Wanson Gallery was launched in the Marbella Club Hotel, a place of genuine elegance and where the Wanson family had their residence in the time of Alfonso von Hohenlohe. Building on a successful family tradition guided by innovation and its pioneering spirit, we saw in the arts and culture the essential values to generate profound and global changes.
The iconic emblem of the buffalo that once used to adorn grandfather Wanson’s factories, is now reborn. A revered symbol, it represents strength, stability and most of all wisdom, and has been brought back to life with the Art Wanson Group (AWG).
TEAM
We are an international platform built by a team of professionals with conscience, ethics and a sense of responsibility generated from the worlds of business, communications, technology, science, the Arts and philosophy.
Actively engaged, all of our professionals contribute strategically to the global exchange of ideas through the Arts and business, and we always strive for excellence and exclusivity.
After years of global expansion, our team of experts spans from Europe to America, Asia, the Persian Gulf and Africa.
Main cities where we operate:
MARBELLA · MADRID · PARIS · LONDON · MONACO · MIAMI · NEW YORK · DOHA · DUBAI
MERCEDES DUERINCKX
Chief Executive Officer
The founder of Art Wanson Gallery and co-founder of Art Wanson Group. A cosmopolite entrepreneur whose career spans over twenty years of experience in companies based in Europe, The Middle east and North African countries (MENA). Mercedes launched Art Wanson Gallery in 2008 and since then it has become one of the leading galleries and Art consultancies in Europe, with an impressive portfolio comprising collections from the 18th- 20th century masters.
MATTHEW MAHONY
Chief Operating Officer
The US Partner at Art Wanson Group. As a former commodity trader who founded a private consultancy in 2013, Matthew has a consultative sales style with exceptional relationship skills and understands the universal and timeless qualities that identify great art. After more than a decade of experience in international trade, Matthew can provide extraordinary solutions for multinational companies and sophisticated investors.
SYLVIE SAMANI
Unique Asset Expert & Senior Art curator
Graduate gemologist from GIA (Gemological institute of America- New York) In that context, she conducted valuations on works of Art set with precious stones involving various foreign diplomatic gifts introducing composite techniques, and presented thorough reports for monetization purposes of masterpieces presenting a high cultural heritage.
She graduated from the leading Art School of the Louvre Museum, with a thesis on Old Masters reuse of canvas and wood support, detectable with scientific tools; she was exposed in spectral analysis techniques, conservation and restoration of Art and conducted research on variable stress generating migration of pigments, bindings and coatings, leading to change, degradation and ageing mechanisms of works of Art. As part of her assessments, her condition reports investigate whether the physical integrity of the work has been altered or not after restoration. In that context, she wrote and published a narrative plot story involving a collector and his works of Art, leading to their mutual interaction and degradation. She conducted research, on multiple versions by masters and their workshop. She focused on multiple originals of a same theme, and she defined standards and design of the required analysis tools; hence, she introduced a new classification distinguishing between originals and workshops replicas, targeting to reveal the presumed matrix of a repeated painting duplicated by the master himself under his direction or not, and the scale of the master’s involvement
INTERNATIONAL LUXURY PLATFORM
“With the power of luxury, art & innovation, we transform businesses as a key part of progress”