Since it reopened, the LaM has been paying tribute on a regular basis to collectors, gallery owners and art enthusiasts who have made museum collections what they are today thanks to their passion, patience, discretion and generosity. In order to celebrate its thirtieth anniversary, the LaM will tell the story of Galerie Louise Leiris through an exceptional exhibition. This story is closely tied in with the modern art collection at the LaM. Roger Dutilleul and Jean Masurel were loyal to the gallery for several decades, bringing together an ensemble of works, both personal and deeply inspired by the aesthetic cannons of its owner, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler.
The future dealer of the “heroic” Cubists Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso opened his first gallery back in 1907. Fernand Léger, Juan Gris and later Henri Laurens all joined his team. After World War I, Kahnweiler opened a second gallery in 1920, Galerie Simon, which showcased a new generation of artists including André Beaudin, Eugène de Kermadec and above all André Masson, who helped connections with the surrealist group.
That is when Louise Godon, Kahnweiler’s stepdaughter, gets involved, helping him to manage the gallery. Upon marrying Michel Leiris in 1926, she bought the gallery fund and changed its name when the dealer was once again forced to leave Paris during
World War II. In the 1950s, continuing to call the shots and remaining loyal to his artists, Kahnweiler began to organise countless exhibitions of Picasso over whom he now had exclusive rights.
Hung in the permanent display galleries, the exhibition will present the LaM’s masterpieces from the Donation Geneviève and Jean Masurel alongside those that Louise and Michel Leiris gave to the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou in 1984. Enhanced with complementary loans from public collections such as the Musée du Quai Branly and Donation Maurice Jardot de Belfort, as well as major private collections, the exhibition will shed a new light on the highs and lows of a gallery that had a decisive influence on the art of its time. Michel Leiris kept a discreet but watchful eye on the life of the gallery for several decades, and thus, in counterpoint, visitors will be able to explore certain fields shared by the poet, the dealer and their artists: primitivism, autobiography and writing in the thematic exhibition Michel Leiris and the illustrated book. In connection with the exhibition, the Figures, Faces
contemporary collection displays will focus on five of the last artists collected by Jean Masurel in the postwar period: Bernard Buffet, Eugène Dodeigne, Eugène Leroy, Jean Roulland and Arthur Van Hecke, whose works will be exhibited alongside a selection of contemporary showpieces.
The future dealer of the “heroic” Cubists Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso opened his first gallery back in 1907. Fernand Léger, Juan Gris and later Henri Laurens all joined his team. After World War I, Kahnweiler opened a second gallery in 1920, Galerie Simon, which showcased a new generation of artists including André Beaudin, Eugène de Kermadec and above all André Masson, who helped connections with the surrealist group.
That is when Louise Godon, Kahnweiler’s stepdaughter, gets involved, helping him to manage the gallery. Upon marrying Michel Leiris in 1926, she bought the gallery fund and changed its name when the dealer was once again forced to leave Paris during
World War II. In the 1950s, continuing to call the shots and remaining loyal to his artists, Kahnweiler began to organise countless exhibitions of Picasso over whom he now had exclusive rights.
Hung in the permanent display galleries, the exhibition will present the LaM’s masterpieces from the Donation Geneviève and Jean Masurel alongside those that Louise and Michel Leiris gave to the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou in 1984. Enhanced with complementary loans from public collections such as the Musée du Quai Branly and Donation Maurice Jardot de Belfort, as well as major private collections, the exhibition will shed a new light on the highs and lows of a gallery that had a decisive influence on the art of its time. Michel Leiris kept a discreet but watchful eye on the life of the gallery for several decades, and thus, in counterpoint, visitors will be able to explore certain fields shared by the poet, the dealer and their artists: primitivism, autobiography and writing in the thematic exhibition Michel Leiris and the illustrated book. In connection with the exhibition, the Figures, Faces
contemporary collection displays will focus on five of the last artists collected by Jean Masurel in the postwar period: Bernard Buffet, Eugène Dodeigne, Eugène Leroy, Jean Roulland and Arthur Van Hecke, whose works will be exhibited alongside a selection of contemporary showpieces.
A fully-illustrated catalogue of around 160 pages will be published in connection with the exhibition. It will comprise a chronology and summary of the gallery’s history, as well as several essays written by several scholars who will explore different of themes (sales price: €30).
![Paul Klee, 17 Gewürze 1932.69 (M 9) [17 Épices], 1932](/en/909-picasso-leger-masson-daniel-henry-kahnweiler-et-ses-peintres/documents/images/klee-1.jpg)
