Stéphan Janssen
Stéphane Janssen in his Carefee home. Photo credit: Tim Trumble
Born in Paris in 1936, he was raised in Brussels in a family of Belgian nobility, many members of which were art collectors. He experienced the Second World War as a child witness. Despite the level of privilege of his own family, Janssen saw the privation and destruction caused by the war. He also saw the traditions of European culture threatened and later redefined in the post-War period, a time of change that engendered a new artistic sensibility.
Janssen’s career as a collector began when, at age 16, he purchased a painting by Spanish artist Oscar Dominguez.