The grail of all Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Jumbos ever produced is for sure Gerald Genta’s very own Royal Oak. A very unique stainless steel AP Royal Oak Jumbo ref. 5402ST fitted with a yellow gold bezel never intended to become a two-tone Royal Oak. Since Genta was a genius, wearing such a unique-looking watch was yet another proof of his character and incredible personality, and way of thinking.

Finally, after almost fifty years since the launch of the Royal Oak in 1972, the Gérald Genta Heritage Association founded in 2018 by his wife and business partner, Evelyne Genta, will be offering for sale this incredible watch, along with original drawings by Gérald Genta himself.

Supported by industry experts and horologists, Gérald Genta Heritage focuses on raising awareness around the generosity, creativity, and visionary spirit of the “Picasso of watches”, the man behind many legendary timepieces and whose contribution to watchmaking remain unparalleled to this day. The Association’s activities mainly consist of events, awards, exhibitions, conferences, contributions, publications, digital communications, and press relations. Chaired by Evelyne Genta, who worked alongside her late husband for almost 20 years as Commercial Managing Director of their joint business, the Association brings together qualified individuals and admirers of the Maestro’s legacy. An Honorary Committee of about fifteen members is regularly consulted on the main decisions of the Association, as well as involved in the designation of future nominees and laureates for the First Edition of the Gérald Genta Prize for Young Talent.

About Gérald Charles Genta

Genta was born on May 1, 1931, in Geneva, Switzerland. With a Swiss mother and Italian father, Gérald Genta was always a designer at heart. He said that if he had been born in Italy he would have turned his designs into cars. He drove a Ferrari but as a Genevese, he felt destined to enter the great Swiss national calling of watchmaking.

A prolific painter from his teenage years, Gérald Genta would produce at least one watch design every day, amounting to 100,000 timepieces throughout his career, many of which have now been lost or destroyed. Pablo Picasso was Genta’s absolute favorite artist and someone he looked to as a mentor, once refusing to answer a VIP client’s phone call because he was preoccupied admiring painting from the artist’s revered Blue Period.

Each drawing would begin with a single circle drawn with Genta’s compass, to the exact size of the watch, and then developed with extremely fine pencils and paintbrushes. Testament to Genta’s profound understanding of watchmaking, when the final watches were released by the brands, they were identical to his original ‘scaled-to-size’ designs.

After concluding his studies as a goldsmith and jeweler, in the early years, when the role of a watch designer was virtually non-existent, he would drive from Geneva to where the watch manufacturers were located in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Le Locle, and La Côte aux Fées, and pitch his designs for 10 Swiss francs apiece. He would return home when he’d earned 1,000 francs.

However, it was at the young age of 23, that he made his breakthrough while working for Universal Genève, with his design for the SAS Polerouter, a watch which commemorated the polar flights of the Scandinavian airline and which became one of the brand’s greatest successes. From then on the Swiss watchmaking firms began to call upon the young designer themselves, and launched him on a path that would see him design for the likes of Omega, Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe, IWC, Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Chaumet, Hamilton, Bulgari, Seiko, Timex and more. Gérald Genta’s career meant that he practically invented the concept of being a “Watch Designer”.

He created his own company in 1969 and developed his eponymous brand with his wife and business partner Evelyne Genta producing exceptional pieces for unique clients. Constantly creating and innovating, he combined new shapes and materials with major watchmaking complexities, and reimagined traditional mechanisms, such as the perpetual calendar, for the modern-day reminding the industry of the importance of fine watchmaking, at a time when the quartz crisis loomed large in the 1970s. After the sale of his company to an Asian corporation in 1999, Genta could fully dedicate himself to his life as an artist and designer. His vision lives on today in the 3,500 or so beautiful sketches, gouaches, and watercolor designs that survive in his family’s collection.

“For me, watches are the antithesis of liberty. I am an artist, a painter, I hate having to adhere to the constraints of time. It irritates me.” —Gérald Genta

“Gérald was always ahead of his time —it seemed only natural to continue his legacy of pushing boundaries in watchmaking, by reviving these revolutionary sketches with today’s most innovative artform: NFTs.”– Evelyne Genta, Wife and Business Partner of Gérald Genta

In 1970, Audemars Piguet approached Genta for a watch that would revolutionize the industry. The first luxury sports watch to be made of steel, this was the first time this material was elevated to the level of a precious metal in the watchmaking world. Genta designed The Royal Oak overnight, inspired by a childhood memory of seeing a man being sealed into an old-fashioned diving suit near the Mont Blanc bridge in Geneva. The revolutionary octagonal-shaped bezel mirrors the shape of a vintage diving helmet, with the eight hexagonal screws securing it to the watch as a helmet would attach to the diving suit.

“First and foremost Gérald was an artist. Every morning, he would sit down at his desk in his suit to draw, full of ideas, and we would never know where the day, or his imagination, was going to take him. As a Swiss artist living in Geneva, he felt that he must apply his art to watchmaking, and that is exactly what he dedicated his life to.” —Evelyne Genta

Over the next two years, Genta followed the watch through each stage of the manufacturing process before its launch in 1972. The watch retailed at CHF 3,740 Swiss Francs —approximately $4,000 USD— an astonishing figure for a watch made of steel at the time. Always one step ahead, Genta’s design was not widely appreciated at first, except by the Italian market, and it took three years until the sales began to rocket. Fifty years on, the watch is still in production today and classed among the best-sellers of all time.

A few years later, in 1976, Genta was in the Drei Könige bar during the Basel Fair, and the CEO of Patek Philippe, Philippe Stern happened to walk in. Genta asked himself how he would design a steel sports watch for the brand. The story goes that Genta sketched the watch in just five minutes on a paper napkin when he was quietly observing the Patek Philippe team sitting in the opposite corner of the room. Not so long after, Genta was contacted by Patek Philippe to design a stainless steel luxury watch, for which of course, he already had the design.

Similar to the Royal Oak, the Nautilus too was inspired by the nautical world, but this time with the soft-angled bezel based on the portholes of the transatlantic ships. Mr. Stern was himself a keen yachtsman, and the blue dial is in the same color as the Swiss lakes where Stern would sail. The watch was named in tribute to Captain Nemo’s submarine in Jules Verne’s novel “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”.

Sadly, Gérald Genta passed on August 17, 2011 at age 80.

About the Sale at Sotheby’s

The ‘Picasso of Watches’ goes digital with an iconic and never-before-seen Gérald Genta designs, paired with unique NFTs —non-fungible tokens—, to be offered at Sotheby’s to pay tribute to the world’s most famous watch designer.

Best known for introducing the first luxury steel sports watches onto the market with the Royal Oak Jumbo for Audemars Piguet and the Nautilus for Patek Philippe, Genta’s contribution to the industry spreads far beyond this, as a pioneer who brought complicated wristwatches back into fashion, as well as through his designs for most fine watchmakers across the world.

For the first time, and on the occasion of 10 years since his passing, Gérald Genta’s personal archive is to be opened, with the sale of one hundred original designs at Sotheby’s starting early 2022, encompassing his most iconic timepieces, never-before-seen private commissions and a selection of innovative, forward-thinking, and unique watch designs including Genta’s designs for the original Royal Oak Jumbo ref. 5402 and the Nautilus ref. 3700. Each to be coupled with an NFT.

Three dedicated “Gérald Genta: Icon of Time” auctions will be held in Spring 2022 across Sotheby’s global locations, presenting a survey of the greatest hits of Gérald Genta’s career. Approximately thirty designs will be offered in each of the sales.

The Gérald Genta: Icon of Time Sale in Geneva will take place between February 10th and the 24th, 2022. This sale will feature Genta’s original designs for the first luxury steel wristwatch Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Jumbo including his never-before-seen unreleased first design for the legendary timepiece.

The Gérald Genta: Icon of Time Sale in Hong Kong will take place between March 10th and the 24th, 2022 featuring Genta’s original design for Patek Philippe’s Nautilus ref. 3700 and three designs for one of the most complicated wristwatches in the world, the GG Grand Sonnerie, comprising 1,000 parts, this watch took five years to develop and includes a minute repeater, Westminster four-hammer chime, perpetual calendar, dual power reserve display, and tourbillon.

The Gérald Genta: Icon of Time Sale in New York will take place between April 13th and 27th, 2022. At this sale Genta’s original designs for the most impressive and valuable Disney watches ever made will be offered.

The original drawings will be offered through dedicated sales in Geneva, Hong Kong, and New York starting early 2022 —the year in which the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Jumbo will turn 50 years young— and Gérald Genta’s unique personal Royal Oak Watch will be sold in May of 2022. Each watercolor painting on offer will be paired with a unique NFT, a non-fungible token, that will feature an artistic digital replica of Genta’s masterful design, with select pieces also including fascinating never-before-seen archive material and multimedia biographical content. Highly valuable in their own right, NFTs have become some of the most sought-after contemporary artworks of our time. By enabling buyers to own these one-of-a-kind designs in both digital and physical form, the new value is being ascribed to Genta’s designs and broadening its reach to a new category of collectors.

The innovation of NFTs lies in the unique ability to ascribe credentials and authenticity to digital artworks and to create an irrefutable record of ownership —the ultimate testament to an item’s legitimacy. The Genta NFTs will also serve as a record of ownership and proof of provenance for each design, ensuring the value of each physical artwork is intrinsically connected to its digital counterpart which cannot be resold without the NFT that attests to the legitimacy of the piece. Through this duality, Sotheby’s is setting a precedent for how auction houses can couple physical artworks with a digital certificate of ownership, ensuring an item’s value long after it is sold. The sale also demonstrates the utility of NFT technology in an enterprise setting and is poised to further the adoption of NFTs across various auction categories at Sotheby's.

To offer as many people as possible the opportunity to participate in the sales, bidding on the NFT lots will start at CHF 100 Swiss Francs for the Geneva sale, HKD 1,000 for the Hong Kong sale, and $100 USD for the New York sale.

Lastly, at the Important Watches, Sotheby’s Biannual Auction in Geneva on May 2022, Genta’s very own unique Royal Oak Jumbo will be sold coinciding with the 50th anniversary of its release. The watch will be sold along with four oil paintings by Gérald Genta, paying tribute to the Nautilus and the Royal Oak.

A portion of the proceeds from the sales will also benefit the Gérald Genta Heritage Association and their mission to encourage and reward the next generation in the watch industry, notably with the launch of the first edition of the Gérald Genta Prize for Young Talent.

“With this sale, we are continuing Gérald’s legacy of innovation. He was always at least five or ten years ahead of his time, working towards unprecedented ideas that radicalized —and sometimes scandalized —the industry, but ultimately transformed it. When Gérald started his career, there were no true watch designers, there were no steel sports watches, there were no complicated wrist watches. He was the very first to usher in this new era —always bringing his absolute passion as an artist to his work, and never compromising on his vision. This is what set him apart.” —Evelyne Genta

For more info on the Gérald Genta Heritage Association click here.