“Marron”, is how Pierre Vasarely, the only grandson and heir of the famous painter Victor Vasarely, calls the lawyer Yann Streiff. “Brown” because he is the one who will hold the pen in the arbitration of the succession which will make it possible to strip of his works the foundation created by his grandparents in 1971 in order to perpetuate the work of the master of the Op art.
Yann Streiff was called upon to defend Victor Vasarely against Renault in 1995. Streiff was still only a young lawyer introduced to the painter’s family through a friend. Precently Secretary of the Paris Bar Conference, Streiff set up on his own five years earlier. He was 29 years old.
A hold up “
The case between the painter Vasarely and the car manufacturer is not simple. First because it is his former employer. The Hungarian, first a graphic designer, worked for the brand, and the famous logo, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, was designed by Vasarely father and son (Jean-Pierre, known as “Yvaral”), in 1972. The brand, which increased its purchases of works of art – including Vasarelys – between the 1970s and 1980s, finds itself at the head of a veritable artistic treasure. Whose management, according to Vasarely, leaves something to be desired… The painter indeed accuses Renault of having “damaged or lost” some of his works, as can be read in The world in 1995. A prosperous year, which Yann Streiff, on December 11, will conclude with a bang: the organization of the heist of the Vasarely Foundation.
READ ALSOVasarely case: the utopian artist and his offspringBecause in 1990, Claire, Victor’s wife, suffering from Alzheimer’s, died. Without his lifelong half, Victor, who has just celebrated his 84th birthday, loses his bearings. Weakened, he finds himself placed under state guardianship. This is the moment when “the vultures”, as he called them out of foreboding, make their appearance. Yann Streiff, like the wolf, enters the sheepfold.
Find our series Vasarely case: the cursed legacy
The utopian artist and his offspring
Charles Debbasch, the learned crook
Yann Streiff, the brown lawyer
The sulfurous daughter-in-law
As family lawyer, he defends the interests of the Vasarely sons, André the eldest, Jean-Pierre the youngest, and their respective wives, Henriette and Michèle). But on the other hand, Streiff also defends those of the Foundation, which is now chaired by… this same Michèle.
However, on the death of their mother, André and Jean-Pierre, who knew that their parents had made disproportionate donations of works during their lifetime – in particular to the foundation – suddenly understood that their share had been reduced to skin of grief. The two “disinherited” wake up and become enraged.
An arbitration that plucks the foundation
Who blows then that a private arbitration is possible, to rebalance the succession? Charles Debbasch, former president of the foundation, dismissed two years earlier by court order? Or Michèle herself, newly appointed president of the foundation, advised by the notary and the family lawyer?
No certainty, except that Yann Streiff will soon be suspected of being the architect of this arbitration. “It was he who held the pen,” assures us Pierre, the grandson. Gold, the lawyer “could not be unaware of the manifest conflict of interest that existed”, as recalled by the Court of Appeal during its trial. Streiff has indeed proceeded alone, without any intervention from the State – we are exactly in between the two rounds of the 1995 presidential election – or outside view, to an arbitration between “two parties with opposing interests”, the children and the institution, but represented in reality by the same people”.
VShis formidable sleight of hand leads to the desired rectification: the two sons and their wives recover all of the foundation’s works. How ? By carrying out an evaluation, without expertise, of the part of the booty (in works, in the absence of liquidities) which returned to the sons, then by simple application of inheritance laws. Except that the 290 million francs estimated to go to the sons in 1995 (about 62 million euros today) exceed the value of the works of the foundation, because of the discount of the artist at that time.
READ ALSOVasarely affair – Charles Debbasch, the scholarly crookConsequently, the two sites of the foundation, the architectural museum of Aix-en-Provence and the castle-museum of Gordes, are emptied of everything that is transportable: 430 paintings, 798 studies, 18,000 serigraphs. Michèle pockets on the way a plump commission (15% of the income generated by its activity of managing the works, 5% lump sum, plus the gradual and discreet recovery of canvases) contractually signed with the heirs (still André and Jean-Pierre), who come, thanks to her, to pocket the jackpot.
How crime benefits the lawyer
streiffqualified as “knowing” in this operation of redistribution of the hoard, is done then pay in canvases. ” I was simply heard on a technical point, because I was an expert in foundation law”, he will justify himself to Mediapart. Three months after the arbitration, for compensation, Streiff is handed over 87 works histories chosen by himaccording to Vasarely’s grandson, plus “the artist’s personal office”, according to a “fee agreement”, could we read in Point in 2008, which promised him “10% of the sums or furniture recovered”.
L’attorney, that Michele qualifiedhave of “ally and more” in a letter from 1999, taken up by Mediapart, Was he Michèle’s lover in a black dress? That’s what it says Pierre Vasarely, lending a thousand lovers to his hated stepmother.
Whatever may have beenbe the nature of the relationship between Streiff and his client, the judgment of the Paris Court of Appeal annuls this arbitration in 2014. La Court of Cassation confirms it vitiated in 2015. LDispersed works must therefore return to the bosom of the foundation, consecrated guardian, by court order.
In February 2022, the Paris Court of Appeal orders Streiff to return definitively the 87 works of which the foundation has been consecrated guardian. He had four months to comply.
Untraceable works
But 46 of the 87 works have still not been located, Streiff hasyant sold most ofare tables. Twenty-one are retrieved in extremis, just before their sale by Artcurial in 2013. The “Mister S.” of catalog, owner, proclaims its legitimacy.
And then 20 have already summer soldes in 2000 to the famous art dealer Parisian Anne Lahumiere. A specialist since 1963, with her husband Jean-Claude, in constructed and geometric abstraction, the gallery owner has also won letters of nobility by becoming in 1999 the President of the European Federation of Art Gallery Associations, then member of the Sales Council (the auctioneers’ control body). How to doubt his good faith? Simply perhaps because Anne Lahumière was also administrator of the Vasarely Foundation… Problem: the gallery owner on rue du Parc Royal, in the Marais, died at the age of 82 without having rendered the works. Inow we have to rely on the cooperation of his beneficiary, Diane Lahumiere.
But above all, if Yann Streiff, in 2000, sells its precious Vasarely to the gallery owner, is that it feeds the project of afford a ruin: a castle in Haute-Corse, the Santa Catalina convent, in the village of Siscy. To do this, on July 21, he founded the SCI Santa Catalina. Breaking the ban of the Vasarely family, the lawyer who became a landowner will set “his sights on the woman of a wealthy industrialist, Nicole Hirigoyen, weakened by the successive deaths of her husband and her sister”, can we read in the exhaustive book of the case, Looting by Laetitia Sariroglou and Pierre Vasarely (Fage).
Crazy sums
The lawyer comes into contact with the widow in 2011 and, a few months later, he is already mandated to be the manager of her assets in the event of incapacity. Confidence in support, the money from the widow to the lawyer will circulate in particular through the Corsican castle. Hirigoyen, supposed to come to cure her depression on the island, ends up take a 29.58% stake in SCI de Streiff. The manor, the 27 hectares of land that surrounds it, a chapel, a convent and a medieval tower classified as historic buildings require many restorations. Nicole Hirigoyen engulfs crazy sums of money at the request of her lawyer, counsel… and majority shareholder.
And since all good things come to an end, Streif try to Dsell the mansion, restored in 2014. Hirigoyan opposes it. End of the honeymoon. In 2017, at new, as reported Corsica–Morningthe lawyer had plans to put the convent up for sale for the sum of 2.1 million euros. He stumbles again on fierce resistance ofHirigoyen, back in the ring. Because eBetween these two attempts to sell, the widow, revived by depression following the loss of her loved ones, began legal proceedings against Yann Streiff. She accuses him abuse of weakness. And she wins.
READ ALSOWhy Yann Streiff, a Parisian lawyer, was disbarredAct I, Streiff is csentenced to three years of suspension by the disciplinary council in December 2015 to get took advantage of his fragility in order to extract 1.6 million euros from him – what the press vhas caller “the little Bettencourt affair”. Act II, Streiff finally sees himself and definitively write off from the bar (after an epic jolt), in 2016, this time for the Vasarely case.
SCI Santa Catalina was placed in compulsory liquidation in October 2019. On the other hand, “ Yann S, member of Trip Advisor since April 2016 »rents two rooms in a convent overlooking the Mediterranean for the modest sum of 176 euros per night to individuals wishing “un quiet place to experience Corsica at your own pace »…