Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, My Galleries and Painters - August 24th, 2024

In 1907, when Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler opened his first gallery in Paris, he bought and exhibited the works of Georges Braque, André Derain, Pablo Picasso, and Maurice de Vlaminck– then completely unknown–helping to establish the finest collections of cubist paintings in the world today. One of his lesser known gallery programs, a publishing arm titled “Beaux Livres (Beautiful Books),” assigned a contemporary artist to illustrate a work of a contemporary writer. For example, Kahnweiler published the first edition of Max Jacob’s “Chronique Des Temps Héroïques” illustrated by Picasso and Apollinaire's “L'Enchanteur Pourrissant (The Rotten Enchanter)” illustrated by Derain. In doing so, Kahnweiler also launched many literary careers in addition to his artists; he was the first to sponsor publications by Jacob, Apollinaire, André Masson, Gertrude Stein, and many others. 

In interviews with the French journalist Francis Crémieux, Kahnweiler openly discusses his career, his artists, and his friends. “My Galleries and Painters” provides an amusing account of the environment in which the cubist movement was born and of the climate in which it flourished. Kahnweiler described the project as "the memoir I may not have time to write."

The book is part of the series “The Documents of 20th-Century Art,” founded and edited by Robert Motherwell, one of the leading American Abstract Expressionist painters and a prolific theorist and exponent of the movement. Motherwell’s writing articulated the intent of the New York School —Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, and others—during a period when their work was often criticized for its departure from traditional representation. As the founding editor of “The Documents of Twentieth-Century of Art,” he has also decisively shaped the shared understanding of modernism.

Published by The Viking Press, New York City (1971). Translated from French by Helen Weave; introduction by John Russell.