Malcolm Gee

Modern Art Galleries in Paris and Berlin, c. 1890-1933: types, policies and modes of display

This essay explores some key issues concerning the presentation of contemporary art in commercial galleries in the early twentieth century. How did changes in art, and the general context of its production and consumption, affect the ways in which dealers presented it? What viewer experience did displays of modern art in these galleries intend? Were there prevalent models for this, and to what extent did these practices evolve? The discussion focuses on examples from Paris and Berlin. Paris was the most dynamic centre for the exhibition and promotion of new currents in contemporary art practice in Europe. As Berlin established its “Weltstadt” status in the field of art, its commercial infrastructure developed accordingly, and Berlin galleries became increasingly important as sites for the valorisation of “new” art in Germany.

Scholarship in recent years has charted in detail the long process through which the structural organisation of the Parisian art world, based on a single standard-setting Salon, broke down under the combined pressures of sheer quantity of submitted work and the emergence of competing aesthetic propositions, to be replaced, at the end of the century, by a hybrid network of interrelated but differentiated sites of exposure and valorisation, in which commercial galleries played a key role. They allowed selection and exclusivity; they focused on the tastes of private collectors; and, to varying degrees, they supported challenging new initiatives in art practice.1 These businesses took several forms, according to the range of art they sold, the means at their disposal, and the strategies of promotion and display that they adopted. In a note to his employer concerning the possible creation of an art gallery linked to the newspaper L’Excelsior, Louis Vauxcelles made a distinction between the function of “art dealer” and “exhibition organiser”. He explained that the business model of the major established galleries, such as the Galerie Georges Petit, combined these two functions: on one hand they sold work held in stock, bought in sales or from artists under contract to them, and on the other they presented temporary individual and group exhibitions during the season. A “Galerie Excelsior” would only be able to operate as an exhibition venue, he argued, because the accumulation of stock required both time and considerable means.2 It was the case that most galleries engaged with contemporary art promoted it through exhibitions, but dealers knew that major financial returns derived from the accumulated value of stock. By the turn of the century the enormous, international, demand for modern French art – including, from the 1880s onwards- Impressionism – had ensured the fortunes of an élite group of dealers, based mainly in the vicinity of the Opéra and the Grands Boulevards, who had had the means, and the vision, to build up holdings in it. In these galleries, which besides Georges Petit, included Boussod and Valadon, Alexandre Rosenberg and Sons, Bernheim-jeune, and Durand-Ruel, exhibitions were primarily means of celebration and consecration, and the principal exhibition spaces in their premises reflected this, although they often disposed of secondary rooms that, as well as being used for intimate viewings, could also accommodate new and challenging work. (Felix Fénéon used a side gallery at Bernheim-jeune specifically for this purpose after 1906.) In some respects, in fact, the grand display areas typical of these establishments were not that well-suited to the relatively small-scale, intimate, character of “progressive” modern art. At a time when he was still fighting to establish the aesthetic credentials of Impressionism, Paul Durand-Ruel had experimented with a series of exhibitions held in an apartment on the Boulevard de la Madeleine. This context corresponded, of course, to the destination of these products, at least in the first instance, the bourgeois interior, and this fact constituted an underlying thread in gallery practices in the future.3 However, the experiment did not entirely satisfy him, and he did not repeat it. In 1887 he re-occupied the extended premises on the rue Laffitte that he had sublet in 1879 under financial pressure, and it was here, over the next thirty years, that the international recognition of the Impressionist “masters” was consolidated and celebrated. As the photograph of a major Renoir exhibition of 1920 shows, subdivision of the gallery area, the use of textile supports, sparse furnishing and an uncluttered hanging of the paintings created a viewing space that combined grandeur with a degree of intimacy, evocative both of the home environments of wealthy clients and the museum rooms that were, gradually, providing definitive consecration of Renoir and his colleagues.4 [Fig. 1]

Fig. 1: Galerie Durand-Ruel, Renoir exhibition, 1920

Archives Durand-Ruel © Durand-Ruel & Cie.

Another important and influential feature of the Parisian art scene at the turn of the century was the number and diversity of smaller galleries, mostly situated on or in the vicinity of the rue Laffitte. It was amongst these that aspiring artists could hope to find their first exposure outside the Salons and exhibiting groups, and some commercial support. In this sector of the market exhibitions had the function of discovery rather than consecration. These galleries did not have the facilities in either space or personnel of the high-end dealers, and displays were modest rather than grandiose. Several of them, including Berthe Weill and Clovis Sagot, corresponded largely to Vauxcelles’ characterisation of exhibition organiser – they mounted shows by young artists and acquired some of their work, but they did not have the means to establish significant stocks. Ambroise Vollard, however, whose first gallery was a cramped shop at 37 rue Laffitte, famously did prosper as an art dealer in Vauxcelles’ terms. He had the perspicacity – and good luck – to re-discover the work of Cézanne at a decisive moment in the development of the market for Impressionism, and to buy substantial numbers of paintings outright. The context in which they were presented was, however, far from grand. At the historic 1895 Cézanne exhibition works were not properly framed and they were crammed onto the walls. Success allowed Vollard to take out larger premises in 1896, comprising a mezzanine and entrance hall as well as a central gallery. However, this was not a grand establishment and Vollard ran it in an idiosyncratic manner that seemed calculated to make prospective clients demonstrate their commitment.5

Similarly – and influenced by Vollard’s example – as soon as he established his gallery in 1907 D-H. Kahnweiler set out to acquire stock. Although he organised a series of exhibitions in 1908 he then abandoned the practice, focusing on buying the output of his select group of artists. The premises on the rue Vignon were very modest and had previously been occupied by a tailor. Kahnweiler had the walls covered with hessian and updated the gas-lighting.6 This was a small, unpretentious space in which works of art were presented simply and modestly for prospective buyers who were committed to “difficult” new art. In the interest of promotion, however, he did collaborate on exhibitions abroad, notably in Germany.

Paris had developed the most diverse and entrepreneurial gallery system in Europe with, in the early years of the twentieth century, particular opportunities for artists exploring new aesthetic directions. However, a similar evolution took place in other art centres as the authority of established institutions was challenged, new exhibition groups formed, and commercial galleries developed their presence and role in supporting artists’ careers. The creation of the Berlin Secession in 1899 was both the culmination of a process of struggle against the perceived mediocrity of existing institutions by internationally minded artists, and an assertion of the importance of the capital on the German art scene.7 It also provided a striking example of the interaction between a “progressive” artists” group and the private commercial sector. Paul and Bruno Cassirer had set up their Kunstsalon in 1898 and were appointed secretaries to the Secession in its founding year. Key figures in the group were attached to the gallery, notably Slevogt, Liebermann and Corinth. The Kunstsalon Cassirer reinforced the network of commercial outlets in Berlin that showed modern art, prominent among which were the Galerie Schulte, the Kunstsalon Gurlitt and, since 1897, the Kunsthandlung Keller & Reiner. It also brought out in a distinctive way the evolving character of promotional spaces in the city. The Cassirers paid great attention to the design of the gallery: they opted for neutral grey walls, as opposed to the familiar plush red; paintings were hung spaced out, and the surrounding decor was restrained; they commissioned Henry van de Velde – who was just becoming known in Germany – to design a reading room, that emphasised the refined, culturally élitist, character of their business.8 Over the two decades before the outbreak of war Paul Cassirer succeeded in imposing the Kunstsalon as the most prestigious and commercially successful site for the promotion of modern art in Berlin. In 1912 the exhibition spaces were extended with the installation of a large top lit gallery on the first floor, in time for a 15th anniversary exhibition that was a manifesto of Cassirer’s commitment to a modern tradition in French and German art, from Delacroix, Courbet, Corot and Menzel to Liebermann, Cézanne and Beckmann.9 His campaign in favour of this tradition - which notoriously met considerable opposition although it was widely supported by business and professional élites – was both influenced by the business model of the major Parisian galleries and dependent on close cooperation with them, particularly Durand-Ruel, through loans of their stocks.

The Cassirer Gallery was located on Viktoriastrasse in the Tiergarten district. It participated in, and influenced, a shift of the centre of gravity of the art trade from the old business centre of Berlin to the west, in response to the dynamism of the West end as the centre of consumption and entertainment in the capital. Keller & Reiner were situated nearby on Potsdamerstrasse, and the Gurlitt gallery relocated to the same street in 1905. New commercial outlets that supported “avant-garde” initiatives in the years just before the war were all located in or around the district. I. B. Neumann opened his Graphisches Kabinett in 1910 on the Kurfürstendamm and the short-lived Galerie Macht that hosted the first exhibitions of the “Neue Secession” in 1910-11 was close by on Rankestrasse. In 1913 Curt Glaser commented on the proliferation of new art in Berlin galleries, citing Neumann (now with additional room to show paintings as well as prints), Gurlitt and Hugo Moses who had recently opened a gallery on Potsdamerstrasse. He noted that Gurlitt had changed its décor to better accommodate contemporary art – the remnants of “false Renaissance taste” had been removed and the exhibition rooms reduced in size-, and he approved of the atmosphere in the Moses gallery that encouraged a sense that the works were destined for the home of an art lover.10 Potsdamerstrasse was also now the location of Der Sturm, the periodical founded by Herwarth Walden in 1910 to which he had attached a gallery in 1912. This was only a modest space: when he organised the “First German Autumn Salon” in September 1913, as a dramatic demonstration in Berlin of the new international avant-garde culture, he needed to rent and equip a suite of rooms along the street.11 A more discrete, but striking manifestation of this culture was staged that autumn and winter at another new venture, the Neue Galerie on nearby Lennéstrasse. The director, the artist Otto Feldmann, had opened a gallery in Cologne the previous year and his programme drew on the Dôme circle of Germans in Paris. The first Berlin show included work by them and also some of their Parisian acquaintances, including Braque, Derain and Picasso. This was followed by a groundbreaking exhibition that juxtaposed recent work by Picasso with African and Oceanic sculptures, lent by Parisian dealers including D-H. Kahnweiler.12

The years before the outbreak of war saw, therefore, the establishment in Paris and Berlin of commercial networks that were effective in their response to contemporary art and in the development of strategies for displaying and promoting it. The war disrupted their activities, although after the initial shock the art market in both cities did revive. During the post-war decade Parisian dealers recovered and strengthened their roles in the context of an effervescent art scene that was even more influential internationally than before. The extremely unstable political and economic situation in Germany between 1918 and 1925 rendered the market conditions there unique and very difficult. In these changed circumstances the strategies of promotion and display of contemporary art adopted by art dealers demonstrated both continuity and innovation. The legitimation of their wares benefited from the familiarity of established practices, while new currents in art and also in design prompted, in some cases at least, new thinking in respect of presentation, that took slightly different forms in each capital.

In Paris during the 1920s changes in the location of galleries across the city that had begun before the war became more pronounced, in tandem with the hierarchy that existed between different types of establishment.13 The area between the Opéra and the rue Laffitte was no longer the fulcrum of the art trade: the most prestigious galleries were now situated further to the west, and the rue La Boétie became the acknowledged heart of the top-end market. In 1930 André Fage, in a book advising collectors of modern painting, listed twenty two galleries on the street, including that of Paul Guillaume who had benefited in a spectacular fashion from the boom in the market.14 Bernheim-jeune and Durand-Ruel both relocated in the early 1920s, to the Faubourg St. Honoré and the Avenue Friedland respectively. In a parallel development, the locus of smaller galleries providing exhibition opportunities to young and less well-known artists was now on the left bank on and around the Rue de Seine.

Following the pattern developed before the war, the grand establishments of the right bank that supported contemporary art almost all had large stocks of already consecrated work, providing them with financial security. They had large, well-lit and luxuriously appointed exhibition spaces that themselves conferred prestige on the works displayed. The atmosphere created was one of refined luxury, a cross between a museum and an aristocratic residence. Visitors were provided with comfortable viewing supports but generally the rooms were uncluttered, encouraging a focus on the works exhibited both individually and as ensembles. Frames tended towards the traditional and the walls provided relatively neutral but usually textured support. “This time it is a palace”, Fage commented on the Galerie Bernheim-jeune. The premises on the rue du Faubourg St. Honoré were extended in 1925: the principal, interconnected, galleries now made up a space of approximately three hundred square metres, preceded by a large entrance hall and offices. Paul Guillaume chose the gallery in 1929 to exhibit his extensive “personal” collection, an event that used the prestige of Bernheim-jeune to assert the museum-like quality of the work on display at a time when the inadequacies of the state in the field of modern art were notorious.15 The Galerie Paul Rosenberg was on a similar scale. Commentators remarked on the restrained but luxurious elegance of its main gallery, with its sophisticated ceiling lights, red silk walls and wood panelling, sparingly provided with deep armchairs and settees.16 Rosenberg used this setting from 1919 onwards to present Picasso above all but in due course also other key figures of the modern school, including Braque, Léger and Matisse, as successors to the great artists of the past, in carefully orchestrated exhibitions designed to emphasise their individual quality and artistic identities.17 [Fig.2]

Fig. 2: Galerie Paul Rosenberg, group exhibition, 1929 (Picasso and Laurencin in principal gallery.)

The Paul Rosenberg Archives, a Gift of Elaine and Alexandre Rosenberg, [III.A.1.18]. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. (Photo MaryKate Cleary)

© Succession Picasso/DACS, London2017. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2017.

The “Galerie de l’Effort Moderne” launched in 1918 by Léonce Rosenberg, and Kahnweiler’s Galerie Simon were each significant sites of promotion of cubist-derived art in the post-war years, based in the same part of the city, although they operated on a less spectacular scale, and also in distinct contrast to each other. Rosenberg was based in a hôtel on the rue de la Baume and pursued an active – and ultimately overambitious – programme of exhibitions which framed the group of artists he had under contract as part of a coherent modern school. The main gallery on the first floor was quite large. It was lit from the side and soberly furnished and decorated. [Fig. 3] This was, according to Paul Fierens, “a place of refreshment, peace and light.” He also noted that for better or worse it was little visited.18 This was partly due to its location in a quiet street but also to a certain dogmatic quality to its artistic policy. The Galerie Simon was also discreetly situated, in the rue d’Astorg. The converted premises were relatively modest, but larger than Kahnweiler’s first gallery. Here he disposed of four quite high rooms. He used them to pursue a similar general policy as before the war: he focused on a small group of living artists engaged in cubist-related personal development, amongst whom Juan Gris became the central figure. Work was shown and made available here for dedicated collectors, in an environment that was intimate and slightly austere. Conforming to the generalised practice of promotion Kahnweiler did now hold regular monographic exhibitions of the artists in his “stable”.19

Fig. 3 : Galerie de l’Effort Moderne, 1921. Group exhibition (main gallery with works by Survage, Gris, Metzinger and Csaky.) Fonds Léonce Rosenberg, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris (RMN, Paris.) © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2017.

Contemporary architectural trends only had a limited impact on gallery environments in Paris during this period, both because of the nature of the commercial spaces they occupied and because dealers largely opted for the reassurance provided by an established framing context. However, one initiative in this sense was taken on the right bank in 1926. When Katia Granoff, the secretary of the new “consensual” Salon des Tuileries, opened a gallery, she turned to Perret frères, who had designed the Palais de Bois for the group in 1924, to remodel the interior of the boutique on the boulevard Haussmann that she had leased for the purpose. They designed a suite of carefully articulated rooms with plain walls and simple detailing, with a sophisticated lighting system in the ceiling. The Galerie Granoff supported contemporary figurative painters, particularly Chagall and Friesz: the restrained classicism characteristic of Perret provided a suitable framework for art that was modern but not “extreme”.20
[Fig. 4 ]

Fig. 4: Galerie Granoff, Boulevard Haussmann, Paris. Interior designed by Auguste Perret and Perret Frères, 1926. CNAM/SIAF/CAPA/Archives d’architecture du Xxe siècle/Auguste

Perret/UFSE/SAIF/2017. © DACS 2017.