But it is certainly my meeting with Elton John which made me understand that there was a young man in me, who suffered from being different, and for whom art and creation would become the essential bases of his existence. I owe Elton John that, quite simply.
In addition, of course, to the constant reocurring pleasure of listening to his music in loop for the past fifty years. An immense corpus of music, an artistic achievement like no others. A creativity and a profusion that never dried up, that the passage of time makes us appreciate more every day, and which remains to me a source of emotions always intact, as in the first days of listening to the Madman Across The Water album or the Blue Moves vinyls – amongst others.

In the years that followed, I saw Elton John a few times again in Paris and London, especially during a session of portraits he permitted me to do in 1976, showing once again his extraordinary generosity towards an ordinary French school boy who was asked in his Art school program to produce a series of portraits as part of his Photo studies. The mandatory topic was to produce a portrait of a person whom we knew with a related object. I then thought of Elton John and the teddy bear from my childhood.

I had contacted my friend Robert Key, one of the most loyal friends of Elton John who had worked for him since the singers' beginnings, in the Seventies.

I had met Robert in 1974 on the occasion of my artistic work in the context of the musician's US Tour. We had developed a deep and solid friendship, which only his premature death put an end to, in 2009. I adored Robert, and I always knew that he appreciated me. His death was a shock, one that leaves a void that the passing years never can fill.
Robert very kindly agreed to inquire with Elton John about my request. I must point that my passion for the singer amused him a lot, insofar as he was quite close to him and saw him regularly.