Credit

Robert Delaunay (1885-1941), Landscape with Cows, 1906, oil on canvas, 50 x 61 cm. Musée d’art moderne de Paris, Henry-Thomas donation in 1984. CC0 Paris Musées / Musée d’art moderne de Paris

Credit

Until September 7, 2025

Berthe Weill, Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-garde

Name: Berthe Weill Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-garde
Start: 2025-05-10
End: 2025-09-07
Location: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Free for Members

This landmark exhibition is the first devoted to the fascinating career of gallerist Berthe Weill (1865-1951), an important, but nearly forgotten figure of modern art history. Weill was the first woman to focus primarily on championing young painters just as they were beginning their careers. In her gallery, she exhibited some of the greatest artists we have come to know today: Pablo Picasso, Raoul Dufy, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Diego Rivera, Henri Matisse and Suzanne Valadon, among many others.

Among the nearly 100 works presented in the exhibition, some have become milestones in the history of art, while others will enable you to discover the work of still unsung figures, including women artists.

Featuring exceptional loans from major museums in Europe and North America, the exhibition brings together paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, jewellery pieces, and archival documents that testify to the quality of Weill’s gallery and deepen our understanding of its historical context.

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Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Le Moulin de la Galette, 1900, oil on canvas, 89.7 x 116.8 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Thannhauser Collection, gift from Justin K. Thannhauser, 1978. © Picasso Estate / CARCC Ottawa 2024

Esther Berthe Weill was born in Paris in 1865 to an Alsatian Jewish family of modest means. In about 1880, she was apprenticed to a print dealer, Salvator (Saul) Mayer, from whom she learned her trade. Her colourful personality – characterized by wry humour and playful repartee – attracted the attention of artists and clients.

In 1901, at the age of 36, Weill opened her own gallery at 25 rue Victor-Massé. She was inventive, daring, and original. Undeterred by other art dealers’ prejudices or superior resources, she followed her instincts. When space was lacking, she hung canvases on clotheslines strung across the gallery’s walls, a mode of installation that became one of her gallery’s hallmarks.

Weill was vocal in her refusal to take financial advantage of artists and rejected the exploitative business practices (such as exclusive contracts, speculation, and price rigging) that were then common among art dealers. Her staunch ethics, on the contrary, compounded by her initial lack of capital, contributed to her gradual yet inevitable financial ruin. Despite this, she managed to keep her gallery open until 1941, defying the rising tide of antisemitism leading up to Germany’s occupation of France.

In 1933, Weill published her memoir – the very first, we think, of an art dealer – with the exciting title of Pan! Dans l'œil! [Pow! Right in the Eye!].

By the time of her death in 1951, Weill had promoted more than 300 artists, many of them women, and many of them when they were at the very beginning of their careers. She held hundreds of exhibitions in her gallery before it finally closed in 1941.

Catherine Éthier présente Berthe Weill | 1. La galeriste de l'avant-garde parisienne

Catherine Ethier draws a portrait of Berthe Weill, a Parisian Avant-garde art dealer with incredible flair.

Weill’s Beginnings
Weill’s career as an art dealer was shaped by her working for some two decades in the shop of Salvator Mayer, a distant cousin who sold antiques as well as paintings and prints. Upon Mayer’s death in 1896, she followed in her mentor’s footsteps and established a modest antique shop that featured drawings, caricatures and collectibles.

The Galerie B. Weill
In 1901, Weill transformed her antique shop into an art gallery called Galerie B. Weill. Working with the Catalan businessman Pedro “Père” Mañach, she enlisted the help of art-world friends to launch her business. It was Mañach who convinced her to focus on contemporary artists and assisted her during the gallery’s first months.

Picasso’s Beginnings at the Galerie B. Weill
Weill met Picasso in 1901, through Pedro Mañach, who shared a studio with the artist on Boulevard de Clichy. She exhibited the Catalan artist’s paintings and drawings in four group exhibitions in 1902 alone, and continued to do so for the next three decades, even as he turned to other dealers, such as Clovis Sagot and Ambroise Vollard, to sell works.

Welcoming the Fauves
Most of the Fauves, or “wild beasts,” first showed their paintings in Weill’s gallery before they attracted critical attention. They gained their moniker thanks to the critic Louis Vauxcelles, who coined it in response to the crude brushwork and boldly coloured paintings exhibited at that year’s Salon d’Automne. Despite their initially scandalous reception, such works were quickly deemed in demand.

A Space for Cubism
Starting in the early 1910s, Weill exhibited several artists who adopted the geometric vocabulary of Cubism pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. Although she had known these two forerunners for years, they turned to Weill’s better financed competitors to sell their Cubist works. Yet Weill still figured among the first dealers to provide a platform for other champions of this rapidly growing modern art movement, including Fernand Léger, Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger.

“Sumptuous nudes, angular figures, ravishing portraits”
Her admiration for Modigliani led Weill to organize his first and only solo exhibition during his lifetime, which opened on December 3, 1917. The show contained over thirty paintings and drawings. The nudes were few in number, but their visible body hair sparked a scandal. Weill had to shut down the exhibition and remove the paintings from view to avoid confiscation: she claimed not to have sold any works other than the few she purchased herself.

Broadening the History of Art
Although Weill helped launch the careers of dozens of young artists – or “les Jeunes,” as she called them – her unflagging curiosity and desire to support her protégés were often at odds with the gallery’s financial well-being. She repeatedly promoted obscure expatriates with no connections in Paris, and staunchly championed women artists in a chauvinistic and sometimes backwards art market.

The Late Years of Galerie B. Weill
The Galerie B. Weill closed its doors in 1941 during the Nazi occupation of Paris. Yet her lack of financial assets allowed Weill to remain under the radar for the duration of WWII. Destitute and in poor health, she struggled to survive. In December 1946, a number of prestigious artists and gallerists came to her rescue, organizing a benefit auction to help her. The money raised was enough for Weill to live comfortably until her death in 1951.

Enrich your experience

We offer several ways to expand on your exploration of the exhibition’s themes. Check out our program!

● Guided tour

Guided tour of Berthe Weill, Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-garde

Until September 5, 2025

● Guided tour

Guided tour of Berthe Weill, Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-garde

Until September 7, 2025

Publication

The exhibition is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated catalogue published in English and French by Flammarion. Bringing together in-depth essays by French, American and Canadian art historians, such as Marianne Le Morvan, Charles Dellheim and Robert Parker, the book is the first major illustrated publication on Berthe Weill.

Sold at the Museum Boutique and Bookstore. MMFA Members enjoy a 10% discount on the retail price.

Credit

Photo MMFA, Jean-François Brière

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Credit

Photo Thibault Carron

Credits and curatorial team

An exhibition organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Grey Art Museum, New York University, and the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris.

The exhibition is curated by Anne Grace, Curator of Modern Art at the MMFA; Marianne Le Morvan, guest curator and founder of the Berthe Weill Archives; Lynn Gumpert, Director of the Grey Art Museum, New York University, from 1997 to 2025; and Sophie Eloy, Attache to the Collection at the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris.