Cultural Portrait: Stéphane Vartanian, from Art Lover to Art Collector and Gallerist

Sometimes, to fall in love with art, all you need is growing up alongside your autodidact grand-mother and watching her painting. This is how French collector, curator and gallery owner Stéphane Vartanian became an art lover at a very young age.

Born in 1970 in Paris, France, in an Armenian family, Vartanian spent his childhood with his grand mother who was painting reproductions, enchanted by the smell of oil painting. Vartanian’s father started working at fourteen and became the French leader of microfilm readers, while his mother was responsible of a French-Armenian school. Both parents were deeply involved in the Armenian diaspora in France and were supporting Armenian artists.

Stéphane Vartanian, 2023

Vartanian’s childhood between his grand mother as a painter and his parents as art patrons paved the way to his passion for art collection and artist support. He bought his first painting with his pocket money at only seventeen, of French-Armenian artist Jean Kazandjian.

An excellent violin player, Vartanian went to music school (Conservatoire de Paris) and was part of two orchestras in France, recording music albums and playing concerts until he was twenty-three years old. He then moved to Boston to attend a business school. During his studies, art was still an essential part of his life. He was buying African sculptures in Paris – a collection he still displays in his current home – and, in Boston, he was spending all of his free time in galleries and museums.

In 1997, Vartanian moved to Hong Kong to work in the watches industry. In 2003, he launched his own company to manufacture watches and sell them to Europe.

In 1998, he traveled for the first time in Beijing and deepened his interest for Chinese contemporary art, particularly impressed by Chinese painter Yang Shaobin for instance.

Cyril Kongo, Bohemiens en Voyage, 2021

Vartanian would buy paintings anytime and anywhere he could, from artists, galleries or at auctions, not as an investor but as serial art lover. As they say in French, he was having “coup de coeur” for paintings and couldn’t resist buying them.

In 2009, Vartanian met with street artist CEET in Hong Kong, bought him a few paintings and started a long friendship with the artist. This marked a twist for him, introducing him to the world of contemporary and street artists such as Cyril Kongo, Colorz, JonOne, Joris Ghilini, Hom Nguyen. At this time, he bought all artworks from his “crush” Kongo! Vartanian gathered around him this group of artists, organising dinners at his home in Hong Kong to showcase and sell artworks to his friends. Art pieces were all sold at each dinner!

Colorz, 2019

Over the years, while still working for his watches company, Vartanian progressively evolved from art collector to art curator and began organising pop up exhibitions in a showroom in Hong Kong, particularly supporting street artists who were not selling artists at that time.

In 2019, he took a step further by creating Step Creation Gallery, representing artists and exhibiting artworks at art fairs, such as Affordable Art Fair, Art Central, Fine Art Asia.

Cyril Kongo exhibition in Tokyo, 2022

Since November 2022 and a first exhibition by Cyril Kongo organised in Tokyo, Vartanian has developed his presence in Asia by organising more solo exhibitions in Hong Kong and other Asian cities, and by participating in art fairs outside Hong Kong.

In May 2023, he organised an exhibition of French-Vietnamese artist Hom Nguyen at Soho House Hong Kong, where all paintings and drawings were sold in the blink of an eye. This marked a significant moment and a turning point for Vartanian in the development of Step Creation Gallery in Asia, with exhibitions and art fairs participation in Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, and Seoul.

Hom Nguyen, “Entités”, Step Creation Gallery, 2023

In October, he will participate to Fine Art Asia 2023 and showcase artworks by Hom Nguyen, Joris Ghilini, Alben and Simon Berger. And his next dream would be to open a break-and-mortar gallery in Hong Kong. Stay tuned!

Joris Ghilini