The story of Via Mundi Gallery begins not too long ago, at the peak of the successful career of a young African businessman, Georges Comlanvi Gassou. Georges Gassou left his native Togo at the age of twenty-two and moved to Grenoble, France to study Physics. In order to support himself while he was working on a doctoral degree, he took on low-paying jobs at local supermarkets. In time Mr. Gassou’s hard work and enthusiasm paid off and he was offered the high-ranking position of National Alcohol Purchasing Manager at Carrefour, the world second largest retailer after Wal-Mart.
 

Inspired by his success at Carrefour, and armed with extensive experience and knowledge of the French wine market, Mr. Gassou decided to venture out on his own. In 1994 he founded Vivaxe International. Today, Vivaxe employs over fifty people and has established successful business relations in France, Africa and the United States. Mr. Gassou’s former employer, Carrefour, is now his most important client and largest seller of the brand-name champagnes and wines produced exclusively for Vivaxe.

As his business endeavors were coming to fruition, Mr. Gassou and his wife, Marguerite Gassou, started thinking about their longtime passion—art. They wanted to open an art gallery, not simply as a business undertaking, but also as a means to help promote the traditional and contemporary arts and crafts of their native country and continent as a whole. The Gassous envisioned an exhibition space that would give an opportunity to aspiring African artists to show their work abroad, as well as function as a showcase for traditional tribal art from diverse time periods and geographic regions. 

Thus, in 2001, Via Mundi opened in Grenoble, France. The gallery’s original concept of promoting African art and finding its rightful place on the French art market is still the driving force behind Via Mundi’s success.

In keeping with Via Mundi’s name, Through the World, and encouraged about its success in France, Mr. Gassou decided to put Via Mundi and its message on the international art scene. In 2005, Via Mundi Gallery opened its doors to the American public in Buckhead, the oldest and most affluent art district of Atlanta, Georgia. In its beautiful twenty-four hundred square-foot space in the Tula Art Center, Atlanta’s Via Mundi is carrying out Mr. Gassou’s vision of showcasing aspiring and established contemporary artists alongside the visual heritage of traditional Africa.