WALL POWER: Limited Edition Art

NILOUFAR BAKHTIAR-CLIGNET and Julie Hamon’s new kids boutique, Bobo Kids, in Chelsea, London, is full of delectable goodies for children - from ZidZid soft toys, to soft green cot beds, to pink painted highchairs, and cushions by covetable French label Maison de Vacances - all possessing the ‘bourgeois-boheme’ European verve of this French/Swiss duo.
But it may well be its artwork Bobo becomes most well known for.

Niloufar’s personal passion is art for children, and when she met the photographic artist Robert Holden on a beach in Greece this summer, just before the store opened, a fortuitous new relationship was born. The artist agreed to offer a collection of still-lives based on little figurines (including the cartoon character, pictured left) donated by local children to a friend of his in South Africa as an exclusive. “He said they had been in his drawers for a while, and he didn’t know what to do with them. He picked a series of 13, and let us have five of each, plus one really big one. He was really happy to do it. As are all the artists we’ve met. They’re very keen - their agents not so.”

It’s a shame the agents still don’t take art for children seriously. But there’s a growing public, and number of galleries, that do and want to offer children something more than Winnie the Pooh on their walls. When decorating their home in Paris, Mélanie and Régis Evennou struggled to find art they wanted in their toddler twins’ room - despite knowing “there are so many talented children’s illustrators out there.” The duo decided to launch L’Affiche Moderne (’The Modern Poster’), a limited editions poster art e-shop, selling 300 editions of artworks commissioned from original artists, photographers and illustrators around the world (including ‘Red Apple’ by Limoon, bottom right, and ‘Marie-Kong’ by Franck Juery, bottom left) as a response. A good proportion of the stock is intended directly for, or suitable for, children.

But it’s not just about what we would prefer to see on our children’s walls. It’s also about aiding development, says Niloufar who discovered her own son’s appreciation of ‘real’ artwork when she took him to the Elsworth Kelly exhibition at the Serpentine gallery, then aged 6 (he’s now 9). “I asked my husband what he felt standing in front of this huge yellow and orange painting. And he said ‘Nothing. I don’t feel anything.’ And my son said ‘I feel like it’s summer and I want to drink an orange juice.’ Elsworth Kelly did it. It made him feel exactly like those colours should do. I realised children are raw territory, they’re not already polluted. They don’t have acquired taste yet - and it was fabulous to see the birth of his taste.”

She has since nurtured it with regular visits to galleries - even on weekends when she’s tired. “I force us all out. It’s what our grandparents used to do with us, and I feel that’s one of the reasons why the French and Swiss are perhaps a little bit better at appreciating art for children. Our grandparents used to take us to galleries at weekends all the time, and we Europeans traditionally spend a lot of time with our grandparents. In France or Switzerland it’s also usual to buy an old engraving from the 1920s for a child’s room, or to have your grandparents’ paintings on your walls instead of something more commercial. I still do.”

Niloufar is already surprised at the take-up of the original and limited edition art in the London store - not just of Holden’s works but those by French photographic artist Mathilde de L’Ecotais who works with food, and has just been commissioned by the French government to animate her food characters into adverts to encourage better eating for the young (see ‘Vapeurette’ above). There are also works by British logo print-specialists Dandy Star, the portraitist Lorna Freytag, and Corinne Charton, although Niloufar explains the latter’s tend to be better loved by the adults than the children. “The artist didn’t have a great childhood and you can tell - children pick up on these things. They’re a little sad.”

Shortly to follow are a graffiti artist called Speedy Graphito, and another big-name artist still to be signed. “He’s keen - we’ve just got to persuade the agent,” says Niloufar. The agents are doubtless put off by the necessarily reduced prices of original artworks for children [L'Affiche Moderne's posters for example cost from just 29 Euros per 12inch x 12 or 16 inch print]. “I have to negotiate something affordable. Children aren’t interested in the price of something or whether a piece of art is by such and such an artist.” If Bobo’s artworks still seem relatively pricey, “they are something your children will have forever,” reminds Niloufar.

*BoboKids: www.bobokids.net. Phone for more details on artworks - 44 (0)207 838 1020. Prices from £560 for a Robert Holden, and £500 for a Corinne Charton.

*L’Affiche Moderne: www.laffichemoderne.com