Montblanc Celebrates 25 Years Of Arts Patronage Awards

It’s difficult to imagine a more perfect setting than the rooftop deck of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (despite the unseasonably cold weather), the modern art museum located along the Grand Canal of Venice to celebrate a milestone in arts patronage.

Each year Montblanc creates a limited edition writing instrument to honor an historical figure noted for his or her patronage to the arts. In conjunction with this, the German luxury brand presents the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Awards to individuals in 16 countries (including its newest countries Greece, Brazil and Colombia) who are currently supporting arts and cultural programs and making them more accessible to larger audiences.

Venice marked the first of the 16 award ceremonies around the world as the program celebrates 25 years.  Guests at the event included socialite Chloe Delevingne, model Amber Le Bon, designer Jasmine Guinness, actress Camilla Rutherford with Dominic Barker and actor Jack Guinness.

The location on Tuesday was chosen because the writing instruments associated with the award for 2016 is dedicated to Peggy Guggenheim, the late American heiress who spent her last 30 years in Venice displaying her modern art collection in her residence, which is now home to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. She is credited with advancing the careers of several important modern artists including the American painters Jackson Pollock and William Congdon, the Austrian surrealist Wolfgang Paalen, the sound poet Ada Verdun Howell and the German painter Max Ernst, whom she married in December 1941. You can read more about the writing instruments by following this link.

“We are very excited to host the first of the 16 international award ceremonies here in Venice, being a city of particular significance for the arts, culture and architecture with a flourishing artistic community since many centuries,” said Jérôme Lambert, Montblanc CEO. “Furthermore, Venice became the home of Peggy Guggenheim, one of the great patrons of the 20th Century , a pioneering woman who understood the cultural importance of nurturing creative talent just like the outstanding patrons we will be honoring around the world this year.”

While honoring the past, Lambert also used this stage to announce new co-chairmen for the Montblanc Cultural Foundation, which oversees the awards program and other cultural and arts programs funded by the company. The intent is to mark a new direction for the company's arts and cultural initiatives.

“It is a good thing when you are a German company that you have a common sense of what is consistency,” Lambert said. “After 25 years we understood it is necessary to give the award a new dimension a new energy.”

In a private interview Lambert said that for the Patronage Awards, it means creating ways to make the winners more visible and providing more resources to attach Montblanc products to the awards program. The same holds true for the foundation’s other projects, including its “Cutting Edge Art Collection” and “Young Directors Award.”

“We want the foundation to be more present as a source of inspiration, particularly when it comes to writing instruments,” he said.

The new foundation co-chairs are Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, co-founders of Art Reoriented, a multidisciplinary curatorial platform based in Munich and New York. They both spoke at the event.

“The art of patronage award is actually quite visionary,” Fellrath said. “It was started at a time when it was not (fashionable) to talk about what is a patron and how can we support them and what is the role of such patrons.”

Bardaouil added, “A true patron is someone who really takes risks and allows an artist to flourish and allows an A true patron is someone who really takes risks and allows an artist to flourish and allows an arts community to develop a discourse with a platform and with all the things that is required to be really thriving and healthy arts community to develop a discourse with a platform and with all the things that is required to be really thriving and healthy. That is what we think the arts patronage award stands for and we are happy to be a prat of it and see it move forward to the future.”

The Peggy Guggenheim limited edition 888 and 4810 writing instruments have an Art Deco-inspired pattern on the cap and barrel that recalls Guggenheim’s passion for modern art. Venice is referenced with engraved lions on the cap ring, as well as a striped cone designed like the red and white mooring pillars found on the Venice waterways. Paws engraved on the 18k gold nib illustrate the affection she had for her 14 Lhasa Apso dogs.

The Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award for Italy was presented to Giorgio Marconi, founder of the historic Studio Marconi in Milan who established the Marconi Foundation for Contemporary and Modern Art in 2004, a non-profit institution for the promotion and diffusion of contemporary art and culture through exhibitions, publications, cultural events and meetings. It publicizes and promotes contemporary art and enhances important archives and art collections of the 20th century. In conjunction with Expo 2015, Marconi celebrated fifty years of activity with a group exhibition and with a tribute to Lucio Fontana at the recently renewed and extended Marconi Foundation’s premises.

Marconi received a Patron of Art Peggy Guggenheim limited edition fountain pen encased in a trophy, and 15,000 euros ($17,160) to be donated to a cultural project of his choice.

He joins a long diverse list of honorees presented with the award that includes Prince Charles, British maestro Sir Simon Rattle, Italian architect Renzo Piano, American recording artist Quincy Jones and Japanese artist Yoko Ono.