Page 417 - Christian Maas Full Book

He would keep on selling for about a year, and would then live in Glasgow, city in which he would
seep into British music. The Rolling Stones were exploding, Jimmy Hendrix was burning his guitars, every

folly was allowed, and fashion itself was heading toward the extremes, colours flooding over T-shirts dis-

playing the craziest slogans. It was the time of free love and music echoed that revolution. In Paris, in 1968,
students had discovered the beach under the pavement. Insults were thrown at the bourgeoisie and its con-
ventions, romancers denounced the illusion of writing, and art, in its entirety, flattered daily life. Down with

simulacrums, the gold plating and the varnish of good taste! Here was the time of Liberty. Women threw

their lingerie to the nettles, busts became flat and romances brief. Time was short, and one had to take
advantage of every second. After two world wars, Europe had experienced horror. With the revolution
of the seventies, it would strike down the prejudices of middle-class morality.

Music attracted him, and provided for his needs for a time: he would work in nightclubs in Glas-
gow and would have the privilege to approach David Bowie and Rod Steward during the seventies; it
was the era of Aladin Sane and Maggie May. He dreamt of voyages, and each profitable activity would

be the occasion to travel. Did he need money? He jumped into Yorkshire-dogs selling to finance his trips

between France and England.
This outburst, Christian fully felt and lived it. He began to travel, and his country of origin now
seemed too small. France felt like a cramped place, where minds were tight and everything looked unau-

thentic.

However, it was in France that he was about to have his first contact with the world that would
become his own: the world of art. In 1976, his encounter with D., an antiquary from Saint-Etienne,

would allow him to experience and apprenticeship that would prove determinant. He would familiarize

himself with painting, but also with stone and ivories, and it would allow him to develop a free-lance
antique dealer activity. But let us not underestimate the feverishness of the nascent artist : in parallel, he

worked with a young woman who would buy back by phone old silver coins, he would then resell them in
Switzerland and would make a substantial benefit out of them. Back from a journey in Africa, in 1982,

he decided to open a restaurant in Brighton : “The Beverly Hills”. He hired a cook supposedly student
of the famous Paul Bocuse and the place soon became famous. There, one could taste the acclaimed

“Délice des Dieux”, even if it meant spending 100 pounds for it.

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