Estates

The MVC represents and manages with the utmost care a select number of artists’ estates entrusted to it by heirs or rights holders. These include Hugo Claus, Francis Dusépulchre, Jean-Pierre Maury, Tapta, and André Willequet, as well as two major French painters, Pierre Célice and Jean Rustin. The stewardship of these estates lies at the very heart of the MVC’s mission: to bring insufficiently recognized voices back into focus, to restore visibility to major works, and to ensure historical continuity within the history of modern and contemporary art.

The management of an artist’s estate is based on three core principles: trust, scholarly rigor, and visibility. Each work is located, documented, inventoried, digitized, and archived according to strict professional protocols, using state-of-the-art collection management software. This process ensures optimal traceability of conservation and research activities. The heritage mission further includes the preservation and restoration of original works, the management of reproduction rights, ongoing research, the long-term promotion of this artistic legacy, and the organization of exhibitions aimed at reintroducing these essential bodies of work to new audiences. Through collaborations with both public and private institutions, the MVC ensures that these artistic legacies are preserved, studied, and celebrated on an international scale. Works from the collection are also regularly loaned to museums, institutions, corporations, banks, and private collectors, attesting to the cultural and heritage significance of this unique ensemble.