Paul Guillaume

Paul Guillaume (* 1891 in Paris, † 1934 ) was a French art dealer and collector. In the 1920s, he entertained the most famous contemporary art gallery in Paris. His collection of modern art located in the Musée de l' Orangerie in Paris.

Biography

Guillaume came from a humble background. Initially he sold African art. In 1914, he opened a small gallery and learned by Apollinaire many artists know. So he took in 1914 Amedeo Modigliani signed and organized the first retrospective of Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova (as both evolved from the Neo-Primitivism in favor of Rayonism ).

He embodied quickly a new type of art dealer. He was concerned not only about the pure mediation between artist and client, but also the mental and material support of the artists he represented. This self-image was very unusual at that time and was practiced by only a few other art dealers such as Paul Durand- Ruel and Ambroise Vollard. This brought Guillaume a high reputation among artists a thing Amedeo Modigliani, brought in one of the three portraits that he produced 1914/15 by Guillaume expressed: he called him as " Novo Pilota " ( " new helmsman "). He was an advocate of modern art and tried to bring them close to his contemporaries.

His gallery moved in 1920 in the prestigious Rue La Boétie and was long one of the leading galleries of modern art in Paris. He represented many artists of the Ecole de Paris, including André Derain, Giorgio de Chirico, Amedeo Modigliani and Pablo Picasso also presented and Henri Matisse from. Albert C. Barnes, the collector and founder of the Barnes Foundation, Guillaume chose for his " major supplier " of.

In addition, Guillaume laid over the years even to a large art collection. His early death at age 43 prevented the dream from its own collection, among other things, Works by Matisse, Picasso, Cézanne, Renoir, de Chirico and Modigliani included, to convert it into a museum of modern art. He decided, however, that his collection should be left to the Louvre. His widow Domenica, who married the architect Jean Walter in a second marriage, the collections of her two husbands brought together later and after long negotiations, they were acquired by the French state in 1959 and 1963. As exhibition was the Musée de l' Orangerie, which was then under administration of the Louvre selected. In order to exhibit the 144 paintings, only extensive reconstruction work had to be carried out. 1984 was there to see the first time the collection Guillaume -Walter.

Writings

• Les Ecrits de Paul Guillaume: Une Nouvelle Esthetique / L'Art Negre / MA visit a La Fondation / Barnes, Editions Ides et Calendes, ISBN 2825800511