Louise Blouin

Louise Blouin
Born Montreal, Canada
Occupation

CEO - President of Louise Blouin Media

Founder and chairman of the Louise T. Blouin Foundation

Louise Thérèse Blouin is a Canadian magazine publisher and patron of the arts. She is the CEO and president of Louise Blouin Media, and the founder and chairman of the Louise T. Blouin Foundation.

Education

Blouin took owner/president short courses at Harvard Business School.[1]

Career

In the early 1980s, Blouin met and married David MacDonald Stewart, a member of the Canadian MacDonald tobacco family; the marriage was annulled within a year.[2]

Blouin later married John MacBain and the two acquired Auto Hebdo, a classified car trading magazine, in 1987. The business grew into Trader Classified Media.[3] She later became CEO of the London auction house Phillips de Pury, but resigned after a year. She started Louise Blouin Media in 2003, and moved into arts publication.

In 2005 Louise Blouin started the Louise T. Blouin Foundation, an international organisation for creativity and the arts.[4] In October 2006 the foundation opened the Louise T. Blouin Institute in Shepherd's Bush in west London, with a large gallery and smaller spaces for seminars and lectures. The first exhibition was of light works by James Turrell.[2]

Controversy

In 2010, an article in the New York Post noted controversy over payments to freelance writers for the arts publications of Blouin's company. One group, WAAANKAA (Writers Angry At Artinfo Not Kidding Around Anymore), demanded back payments of $18,000.[5] In December 2013, Artinfo.com abruptly laid off 25 international employees. The New York Observer posted a 1,000-word internal email from Louise Blouin to staff explaining that the move was part of a new direction in which "One person doing all and not good we need less of one but many more."[6] In February 2014, the New York Post reported that two former executives were suing Blouin for $250,000 in pay and commissions.[7]

In 2013, a fake Twitter account under the name Not Louise Blouin was active, posting Tweets satirizing Blouin. The account drew attention within the art press.[8] By January 2014, the parody account had gone inactive.[9]

Recognition

In 1993 Blouin was one of approximately 200 "Global Leaders of Tomorrow" listed by the World Economic Forum, a Swiss foundation.[10]

References

  1. ↑ "People: AP Alternative Assets LP". Reuters. Accessed April 2015.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Hampson, Sarah (8 October 2006). "My Dream? The World". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  3. ↑ Porter, Andrew (14 March 2004). "Art Publisher's Ambition is a Study in Revenge". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  4. ↑ Felicia R. Lee (2 May 2005). A New Arts Foundation with a Focus on Creativity. New York Times.
  5. ↑ Keith J. Kelly (16 July 2010). Didn’t get paid by Louise Blouin? Get in line. New York Post. Accessed December 2013.
  6. ↑ Dan Duray (13 December 2013) Blouin Media, Publisher of Art+Auction and Modern Painters, Terminates Most International Freelance Contracts. New York: observer.com. Accessed April 2015.
  7. ↑ Keith J. Kelly (14 February 2014) Former execs sue Blouin Media. New York Post.
  8. ↑ Dan Duray (17 June 2013). Obviously, This Is Not Louise Blouin on Twitter. New York: observer.com. Accessed April 2015.
  9. ↑ Paddy Johnson, Whitney Kimball, Corinna Kirsch (22 January 2014). Wednesday Links: The Crazy-Pants Art World. ArtFCity. Accessed April 2015.
  10. ↑ GLT Class 1993. Geneva: World Economic Forum. Accessed April 2015.