At the time I decided to learn more about Romania, I had no idea I was going to get so deeply attached to the Romanian artistic values, of which I was totally unaware at that time.I first got in touch with Romanian painting about ten years ago when in an art gallery of Bucharest I came across a painting highly representative for the creation of D. Ghiaţă, namely “The Fair”. This masterpiece of Romanian art represents the first stone in the foundation of my present collection.
Ever since, I have enthusiastically visited museums, exhibitions, art collections, galleries, and got closer and closer to the most representative aspects of the creative spirit of this nation. It is a matter of praise for the Romanian artists the fact that, to the education they attended in the great European schools, they added the definitory style coordinates of the most representatives modern trends, which they adapted to their national features and to their own personality, accomplishing thus their creation. Looking back today, I can say that all these years have been a joy to my soul, opened for me new horizons and created permanent bounds between me and this country. The establishment, in the year 2006, of the Bonte Foundation was just a natural act, aiming at the perfectly justified promotion and integration of the Romanian art within the context of the European cultural values. I am fully dedicated to the necessity of such reconsideration from the point of view of an art collector committed ever since his youth to what the beauty of the art means.
To determine the authenticity of the paintings, to make a selection on the basis of the intrinsic quality and the extent to which they are indeed representative for the work of each painter, as main principle, to evaluate such works on an art market not yet consolidated, to identify important works in the infinity of offers displayed within the galleries undoubtedly represent essential aspects in the realization of a true art collection. I had the chance to meet the right people able to support me in such actions, people whose contribution to the realization of this collection was indeed essential.Art, the certitude of the beauty created by humans, shall always be one of the lights of my soul.
Alain Bonte