The Gallerist Turned Painter: Inside Maison Olivier
July 8, 2026
Before founding MAISON OLIVIER, Olivier Babin spent over a decade as a gallerist, founding CLEARING in 2011 and building it into one of the most closely watched galleries for emerging art— a chapter that shaped his eye for what makes work resonate. Now, with MAISON OLIVIER, founded in New York City in 2025, he's turned that instinct inward, building a studio dedicated to unique, customized artworks. Working primarily in color and text, MAISON OLIVIER creates small paintings for those who wish to celebrate, commemorate, and gift artfully.
How do you describe MAISON OLIVIER in relation to your work as a gallerist?
My work as a gallerist, working mainly in the primary and emerging market, consisted mostly in identifying the artists that will be shaping the conversation, in which other artists, but also curators, critics and collectors will be taking part. It was a very exciting and fulfilling part of my life, but it was always very elitist. MAISON OLIVIER on the other hand, is much more mainstream in its aspiration and mission and makes art for the people, about the people. Again MAISON OLIVIER is merely the maker of the work but the true artist is the commissioner/viewer of the work.
Who inspires you?
In two words: the world. By which I mean nature, cities, people, five thousands years of culture and artistic production.
Now, if I’m going to zoom in on who are the more specific influences of MAISON OLIVIER, I will of course have to mention On Kawara (1932-2014), Japanese conceptual artist, and his Date Paintings, as much for the formal aspect than for the work ethos. Life and work are bound by finitude and from finitude stem humility and simplicity, The "whatever you do, do it right” attributed to Donald Judd is also an important moral imperative. And in terms of content, Broodthaers, Baldessari, Boeti and Ruscha are of course titular figures when it comes to text painting. More poetically, there’s an artwork that I have been thinking about at least once a week since I arrived in New York: Measuring the Universe by Roman Ondak. For almost 3 months visitors were invited to record their names and height in pencil on the walls of an empty room at MoMA, resulting a nebulous ring archiving the human galaxy.
This and what it means to have a name, to be given one, to give a name, to live up to one… So, life too, I guess.
Below: ON KAWARA (1933–2014),JULY 4, 1967 (Left), JOHN BALDESSARI (1931-2020), What is Painting (right)
What first drew you to flags, country graphics, and global sporting culture?
Being born in 1975 and having grown up in an age in which access to information and visual culture were incommensurable to what they have become today, books, maps, albums and Panini stickers were primary sources of knowledge and enjoyment.
Is there a specific memory, place, match, or cultural moment that influenced the way you built this collection?
When France organized the World Cup in 1998 and won it for the first time ever, it had an impact on the country, its society and even its economy, that only compares with the Liberation of Paris a little over 50 years earlier (which I was not around for or the election of Barack Obama in 2008. Since then I have taken football/soccer much more seriously.
If someone was going to invest in one piece from your collection, which piece would it be and why?
If somebody was to pick only one out of the eleven works that MAISON OLIVIER assembled for Joopiter Marketplace, I'd advise them to buy FRANCE IN GOLD, as it does synthesize both the flags and the names paintings. And the blue, white, red on gold is my devout wink to Byzantine icons and Early Renaissance painting, which I adore. And to state the obvious - but I don't want to jinx it - FRANCE is the very likely winner of this World Cup.
Whose collection would you want to own and why?
I often think about figures of the fashion world such as Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld and Valentino in the 20th century, who lived lives shaped by exquisite taste and exceptional access, in amazing homes, surrounded by the most amazing art, furniture, objects and stories. So their collections, their homes, their lives. Or Miuccia Prada’s today.
What makes a piece feel worth collecting to you?
Something that you cannot unsee and that you want to engage and live with.
Name a person, place or thing you recently discovered that you’re loving?
Audubon Terrace Historic District in Washington Heights, a vast architectural ensemble in Northern Manhattan that aggregates among others the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and The Hispanic Society Museum. I went there for the first time a month ago and can’t wait to go back as it’s a great part of the city to explore and some amazing institutions and collections.
