What does it mean if your art appears on a hit television show? For David Aiu Servan Schreiber, one of whose signature “Planet” paintings popped up on Emily in Paris, it has meant an influx of inquiries from would-be collectors who spotted the cameo.
I watched the recently released fourth season of the popular Netflix show with great interest. But, I confess, I didn’t notice Servan Schreiber’s work my first time through, focused as I was on our heroine’s trips to Claude Monet’s garden and Rome.
Then, my editor spotted a LinkedIn post from Marine Tanguy, the founder of MTArt Agency, the world’s first talent agency for visual artists.
“Emily in Paris meets our artist David aiu Servan-Schreiber—it was an obvious match!” Tanguy wrote, sharing a photo of the scene in which the titular Emily Cooper (Lily Collins) attempts to make peace with sort-of friend Camille deLalisse (Camille Razat) in front of the artist’s painting of a luminous golden planet. “And yes, whoever didn’t buy a David, well, that was a big mistake! Our inbox has exploded!”
Soon, I was adding to the influx of DMs flooding Tanguy’s social media accounts to learn more about Servan-Schreiber’s work, how his painting had come to appear in Emily Cooper’s cheerful, sunny Paris—and what the Frenchman thinks about the show.
“I do enjoy it for sure,” Servan-Schreiber told me, admitting that he hadn’t watched the series previously, but had now been catching up on its earlier seasons.
Appearing in Emily in Paris, however, had alerted the artist—a native Parisian who now splits his time between London and Sardinia—to just how much his friends and family do watch the series, which has been criticized by some locals as an unrealistic depiction of the French capital.
“It’s classic French. They pretend they don’t watch something, but they heavily watch something,” Tanguy told me. Emily in Paris marked her firm’s first time working with Netflix, but one of their artists had previously provided the art for an AppleTV documentary.
For Servan-Schreiber, seeing his work onscreen—and the immediate interest it generated from collectors—was a gratifying experience.
It was made all the more meaningful because the producers ended up spotlighting Coral Moon, one of his first “Planets” paintings.
David Aiu Servan Schreiber with one of his “Planets” paintings. Photo by Jason Smith, courtesy of the artist.
The series grew out of his own personal search for spirituality and the sudden realization that all life comes from the earth beneath our feet and the light from the sun.
“It was very much an ‘aha!” moment,” Servan-Schreiber explained. “And I painted my first ‘Planet’ with metal leaf to highlight the preciousness of our environment.”
The series, still ongoing, evolved to combine the four elements. The paintings are done on wood panel to represent the earth, and the pigments are applied using both air and water, with diluted acrylic paint sprayed through an air compressor. For fire, Servan-Schreiber started out using a blowtorch. This year, he began harnessing the power of the sun directly, concentrating it through a fresnel lens to create super hot beams of sunlight that he can use with great precision.
David Aiu Servan-Schreiber’s painting Coral Moon hangs in a meeting room at the Hotel Alfred Sommier in Paris. Photo by the Hotel Alfred Sommier.
“I love the process, but living in London, I’ll be very honest with you. It’s quite limiting when it comes to capturing the sun, because you don’t have it every day,” the artist said. “But in Sardinia, you have more of it.”
When he started making “Planets” in 2014, Servan-Schreiber was transitioning from the graffiti world to the fine art world. The collector who bought Coral Moon had heard about Tanguy and her then-fledgling artist talent agency, and suggested the artist should meet her.
Servan-Schreiber became the first artist in the MTArt stable. The agency has divisions for public art, art fairs, institutions, brand partnerships, digital, and entertainment. So, in addition to appearing on Emily in Paris, Servan-Schreiber has worked with brands such as Ruinart, Glenfiddich, and Patron, and created a monumental sculpture for Burning Man.
David Aiu Servan-Schreiber’s painting Coral Moon hangs in a meeting room at the Hotel Alfred Sommier in Paris. Photo by the Hotel Alfred Sommier.
There are more traditional exhibitions, which MTArt has helped Servan-Schreiber stage everywhere from Singapore to Los Angeles to Brussels, including a group show at Annely Juda Fine Art in London over this past summer.
As for Coral Moon, “not only is it in Emily in Paris, it’s also the painting that allowed me to meet the person who made my life as an artist,” Servan-Schreiber said. Today, the painting is on display in Paris’s Hotel Alfred Sommier, which also touted its TV appearance with a post on LinkedIn. The work’s owner is part of the family that runs the hotel, and one of the property’s private meeting rooms stood in as Camille’s office at the art gallery where she works.
It has all amounted to tangible commercial success for Servan-Schreiber. Since 2014, his price points have risen from about £3,000 to between £17,000 ($3,900 to 22,000) and £19,000 ($25,000) for his large works—an increase of 467 to 533 percent. His collector base has also grown more global and now includes royalty: his works are included in Prince Albert II of Monaco’s collection.
David Aiu Servan Schreiber, Amun-Ra at Burning Man 2023. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Tanguy said that his rising prices reflect “exceptional performance and demand” and “a significant rise in the artist’s recognition and market position.”
Emily in Paris did not mention Servan-Schreiber by name, so it’s unclear how many people will find his work without doing some internet sleuthing. But for those who already know the artist, Coral Moon was immediately recognizable as part of the “Planets” series—and the appearance seems to given him an added cachet.
“What I see is that this sort of gives you a credibility that I really didn’t expect,” Servan-Schreiber told me. “I received a lot of messages, so it was funny and unexpected.”