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Christian Levett (FAMM Mougins)
Robert meets Christian Levett, a British collector, philanthropist, and former investment fund manager. He is the founder of FAMM (Female Artists of Mougins Museum)(opens in a new tab), the first museum in the world outside of the USA to hold a permanent collection dedicated to A+ female artists from impressionism to contemporary art.
Opened in 2024, FAMM reflects his long-standing commitment to addressing structural gender imbalance in art history through exhibitions, research, and public programming.
Christian Levett began collecting at the age of seven, initially focusing on medals and coins. Christian Levett began collecting Old Master paintings and antiquities early in his life, developing a particular interest in Greek, Roman and Egyptian archaeology. In 2011, he founded the Mougins Museum of Classical Art (MACM), where antiquities were displayed in dialogue with modern and contemporary works.
Since 2016, his collecting has focused primarily on women artists. His collection today comprises nearly 2,000 artworks, including over 700 works by women artists, among them approximately 150 works by key figures of Abstract Expressionism, making it one of the most significant private holdings in this field.
Over the past decades, Levett moved towards the wider art market and began building an important collection of 20th and 21st century art. This includes, amongst others, post-war American art, Zero movement art and African contemporary art. In the last few years, he has built a significant collection of abstract works by female artists.
This is now displayed in his home in Florence, an Italian palazzo transformed into an inspiring gallery in its own right, having hosted private tours for museum patrons and university groups, including Harvard, Stanford, and New York University, the Palazzo Strozzi, the Bargello Museum, the Wallace Collection and the Tate.
His Florentine palazzo, hung exclusively with works by women artists, regularly hosts museum patrons and academic groups from institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, and NYU. He has commissioned three major scholarly books: Abstract Expressionists: The Women(2023), the FAMM museum catalogue Female Artists of Mougins Museum, France (2025), and In Their Own Words, which brings together the letters and writings of more than 100 women artists.
A committed philanthropist, Christian Levett has supported over 50 exhibitions at major institutions worldwide, including the British Museum, The Met, the Royal Academy, Tate, and Palazzo Strozzi, as well as archaeological excavations and restoration projects. He has served on the boards of the Ashmolean Museum and The Met, is currently a board member of Palazzo Strozzi, and is a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford.
Follow: @FAMM_Mougins
Visit: https://famm.com
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