Niçoise by adoption, she grew up amidst art, before a first career in the spotlights as a model and actress. "When I was in the US I'd get bored between castings so visited galleries and museums. Meeting Jack Nicholson was my turning point," Francisca Viudes tells us. She started dealing with sales of part of the actor's art collection, a hobby that rapidly led her to working as an art-purchase consultant under the guidance of Steve Tisch and Frank Strausser. Her mentors are the Brazilian Jones Bergamin and David Nahmad, her guide for almost eight years. Nowadays dividing her time between Brazil, Italy and France, she felt a natural step forward was to create a new art hub here on the Riviera, so in 2018 she launched The (He)art for (He)art Program in a garden apartment at 43 Rue de la Buffa, Nice. Its vocation is to connect the south of France with the rest of the world by inviting art collectors and critics, exhibition curators and well-known artists to discover this region where so many artists, from Monet to Yves Klein, have lived. After inviting artists Hilal Sami Hilal, Reynier Leyva Novo, Hilario Isola and this summer Wolfe von Lenkiewicz for residences, her guest this autumn is Douglas White, who will introduce his documentary film A Moon for My Father, made with Mania Akbari, at an OVNI Festival screening, its first showing in France after the London Barbican. An exciting new departure for the Côte d'Azur!
Par Tanja Stojanov
Côteweb 2021, création de site Internet sur Nice