Interview

Laurence Graff is sometimes called the king of diamonds, sometimes the new Harry Winston. This self-educated, self-made East End Londoner has bought and sold some of the most famous stones in the world and his clientele includes royalty from Riyadh to Hollywood. His company, Graff Diamonds, is based in London and is one of South Africa's largest producers of polished diamonds. Mr. Graff himself is a polished gentleman of extraordinary means and taste. Last March, Forbes magazine ranked him #462 on its list of the world's top billionaires. But who's counting? Interview's chairman, Peter M. Brant, a longtime friend of Graff's, changes the subject from diamonds to art, because Graff's art collection is another lode
of extraordinary gems.

PETER M. BRANT: It's great to go right to the roots. Tell us about how you got interested in becoming a jeweler.

LAURENCE GRAFF: I started when I was very young. I left school at a very early age. By the time I was 15, my mother-who passed away several months ago at the age of 98-took me to a jewelry-manufacturing workshop in London to sign me on as an apprentice to learn the trade. All I really learned in those first three months was scrubbing floors, cleaning toilets, and running errands. [laughs] For some unknown reason, after three months they didn't think I'd make the grade, so they very politely asked me to leave. I went to another job and sat down as a proper apprentice, learning how to make jewelry. It involved a lot of remodeling and repairing. It was a bad time in England in those days and people didn't have much money-they would repair a ring rather than buy a new one. They would thicken up the gold. I learned all the ways to make something look new again. That job lasted a few years. The company ended up in bankruptcy, and I decided to start a little company of my own. I started in a tiny, tiny room. I took an older man as my partner. He was the craftsman; I was the salesman. It was a twosome. We managed to do repair work, which gave us a bare living-I always made sure he earned much more than I because he was a family man and I was 17 years old. I managed to get contracts to do repairs, which gave us constant work. And on the back of that, we started to make jewelry-artistic jewelry that resembled this period of Victoriana, which was quite popular in England. We sold pieces for two or three pounds each. The rings were made with semiprecious stones, and they were handcrafted. I managed to get credit to buy some diamonds, and I sold a ring for a hundred pounds. And then I sold one for 200 pounds, then 500 pounds. That was basically how it started. I took over my partner's share and assumed the debt. And very, very slowly, I started to build up. I traveled the world because there wasn't enough business in England. First, I went to Australia and Singapore. The Far East was where I first started to make some money. I was a young man from the East End with the gift of gab, as they say. I always believed, right from the beginning, if you're going to do something, do it the best. If you're going to work, you want to enjoy it-make a product that you really enjoy selling or owning. Eventually we went into the retail business. And all the time my diamonds were getting more and more interesting in size. In the early '70s we had the birth of oil money. We had all the Arabs-and it wasn't long before all the royal families came to me.

PB: When did you start designing jewelry?

LG: I can't draw. I can't paint. But what I can do is tell somebody else what to do. I'm a creator. I can tell an artist what to do. I can be behind the artist. I have the eye, so I can move things around. I can put stones together. I can match them.

PB: I've always noticed you cut the diamonds in a way where you preserve the most perfect part of the stone. It has fewer flaws than most cuts that you see.

LG: It's the rough diamond that dictates what you can get out of a diamond. You can't say, "I'm going to make this," or, "I'm going to make that." It's nature. Whatever nature gives us, we explore and we build on. We can't create something that is not in the stone, so we take away as many imperfections as we can. Sometimes, you can't take them all away. But mostly, our cut, our polish, the life we put into the stones, the beauty that we bring out is exceptional.

PB: I remember when I was a kid, I was always fascinated that one of Interview's favorite characters, Liz Taylor, was a great lover of jewelry. I remember Richard Burton buying that great diamond for her. Did you actually have any dealings with Liz Taylor?

LG: Yes, I did. Over the years I've met her a number of times. The first time I met her was around 1970 when she wanted to buy a gift. She was in London staying at the Dorchester and we got a call to come over and show something to her. I thought, Well, Miss Elizabeth Taylor-I'm going over myself. She's a beauty and I love beautiful women. So I went there and I was asked to wait for a while in the hall. And while I'm waiting with my case, an Arab sheikh came along. He said, "Ah, Graff, what do you have here?" I said, "I have some beautiful things, Your Highness." He said, "Well, come up to the penthouse and show me what you have." I said, "I'll be right up. But first I have to see Miss Elizabeth Taylor." She came out. She selected a piece, and she said, "I saw you with that interesting character." I said, "Well, that's the king of Saudi Arabia's brother." She said, "Oh, I'd love to meet him." And I said, "Then come with me. I'm just going up to see him now." So I took Elizabeth Taylor up in the elevator to the penthouse of the Dorchester hotel and knocked on the door: "Your Highness, I have a guest who I'd like to introduce you to-Miss Elizabeth Taylor." It meant absolutely zero to him. Maybe he thought I was presenting her to him, you know? [Brant laughs] I remember she threw herself in my arms and said, "Laurence, I've really embarrassed myself. What did I do?" It was an interesting experience.

PB: That's great.

LG: Later on in years, she came to my house in La Rosée in the South of France, where I now have the famous portrait, the Red Liz. She actually sat in front of where I eventually hung it. But you know, I have always been a buyer of art. Even when I didn't understand it, I bought the stuff.

PB: When did you first become interested in art?

LG: I used to go to art exhibitions. I remember one of the first artists I saw was a magician who appeared on television. His name was Chan Canasta and he used to tear up telephone directories. But before he did that, he would flick through the pages saying, "Tell me when to stop." And you'd say, "Stop"-he would tell you what it said without looking. It was amazing. He was also an artist. He painted under his birth name-Chananel Mifelew. I was very naïve and I was not a connoisseur of art. But I went to one of his exhibitions. It must have been in the '60s. I ended up buying around five paintings. So that might have been one of the occasions that I started buying art-all good for the dustbin years later. But I started that way. I was always a little bit of a collector and a hoarder. And whenever I got involved in anything, whatever it was-even when I was a kid and I collected cigarette cards-I really got into it and had the most. So when it came to paintings, once I got the bug, I always wanted to buy something. But I really knew nothing about art. In the early days in New York when Andy [Warhol] was still alive, I saw him delivering Interview magazine up and down Madison Avenue. I didn't even know who he was-I just knew he was a bit of a character. But my friends in the business would speak about some of these artists, and later on about Keith Haring. I could have bought those paintings for very little money, but I had no interest. I didn't know what they were. I didn't follow the '80s artists. So I bypassed them. At the time I really was a collector of art, but it wasn't contemporary art, it was impressionism.

PB: It's similar to my story. I was a collector of coins first. But you really started with impressionism?

LG: Yeah, yeah.

PB: But you came seriously to art in taking an established position with impressionism.

LG: I went to an auction in the late '70s and bought a small Renoir. People said, "Why did you buy a Renoir that size?" I said, "I can put it in the safe with my diamonds." And that was a true story. I bought it to put it in the safe.

PB: So you looked at it as a diamond.

LG: I looked at it like a diamond. It's beautiful. I didn't want to put it on the wall. I put it in the safe. Anyway, I soon learned to put it on the wall. And then I thought, You know, I really am proud to own this Renoir. I made myself a promise: Every year I'd buy an impressionist painting. I came to New York for the Havemeyer sale.

PB: The great Havemeyer sale, yes.

LG: There was one painting by Monet that I loved. It's a canal scene with a little red in it. It's really beautiful. So I said to my wife, "Anne-Marie, I'm going to buy the painting." She said, "I don't want that painting in my house." I asked, "Why?" She said, "A million-pound painting hanging on my wall? You've got to be crazy. I don't want the responsibility." I said, "I'm going to New York to buy that painting." So I came to New York because when I want to do something I usually go ahead and do it. I was so embarrassed, being a jeweler, that someone would see me bidding on a painting. [Brant laughs] I didn't know how to go about it. Sotheby's, which was on Madison Avenue in those days, invited me upstairs. They were having caviar and champagne and treating their clients very well. And I got the jewelry expert to bid for me. The estimate was a million. I said, "Go to a million one." In those days, if a painting was $1 million, it brought $1 million. It didn't bring $2 million. So it went to $1.2 million, and I was hiding. I didn't want anybody to see me bidding that sort of money. I lost it. And I always regretted it.