Curated by Solti supports those who choose to live with art, from the first spark to building a collection.
“A collection always begins with an encounter. My role is to bring about the ones that matter.”
Richard Solti
Gabon, 1990s. A young man stops in front of a carved object. He looks at it, for a long time. He hesitates, but does not buy it. He tells himself there will be another chance. There won’t be.
I never saw that piece again. I don’t even know what became of it. But I never stopped thinking about it, and it was there, in that refusal, that a way of looking at works began that will never leave me.
Social work
I returned to France and became a social worker, working closely with those who have nothing left to lose, and I observed that they rebuild, despite everything, a world they can live in. I dedicated my doctoral thesis to this question: how does a human being tell themselves a story solid enough to stand upright? That question, too, will never leave me. Above all, I learned to listen: to hear what a person does not always say directly about their desires, their lacks, what they seek without naming it. It is this way of reading people, rare in the art world, that I would later apply to each artist I chose to defend, and to each collector I would accompany. Listening first, then the search for the work that will answer their request, sometimes even the one they had not yet been able to formulate.
Magic Megève, July 2026
The gallery
In 2022, I took over the direction of a gallery founded in Strasbourg in 1996, one of the first in Europe to exhibit art brut, at a time when the field interested no one. Three decades later, it ranks among the five leading addresses in the world. I inherited its documentary rigor, its network of international collections, and an intact conviction: acquiring a work is not something one improvises.
Today
It is this dual competence, the collector’s eye and the researcher’s rigor, that sets my view apart today. I never recommend a work that I have not first understood in what it tells of the life of the person who made it. Nor do I ever propose one without having taken the time to listen to the person who will receive it. Every proposal I make is designed for one person, never for a market.
I have known since Gabon what it costs to look away too soon. That is why I never do it anymore, neither for myself nor for those I advise.
“A work must make itself felt at once, then keep revealing itself.”
At the origin of Curated by Solti is the eye of Richard Solti. That of a collector, shaped by experience, intuition and a demanding knowledge of the art market. With Marie-Laure, it takes the form of an attentive dialogue, in service of the works and of those who choose them.
Richard Solti
Founder
I am not looking for works that confirm what we already know. I look for those that shift the gaze. I believe in direct relationships with artists and collectors, in knowledge of artistic practices and in the long time of a collection.
Marie-Laure Riedinger
Director of Relations and Development
I am there at every moment of a project, from meeting an artist to extending a hand to a collector. What moves me is witnessing this resonance between two sensibilities: that of the artist, carried by their work, and that of the collector who recognizes themselves in it.
Supporting collectors
Curated by Solti supports collectors in discovering and acquiring contemporary works, with a personal, demanding and attentive approach. Whether it is a first acquisition, a piece you fell for or the long-term development of a collection, every project begins with a conversation.