Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler - Art Dealer

Art Dealer

Kahnweiler is considered the major dealer in, champion of, and spokesman for Cubism. He was among the first people to recognize the importance and beauty of Picasso's Les Demoiselles D'Avignon, immediately wanting to buy it and all of Picasso's works. Picasso wrote of Kahnweiler What would have become of us if Kahnweiler hadn't had a business sense? – compelling because at the time of the origination of his most famous works Picasso was largely unknown as an artist and destitute.

Kahnweiler supported in his gallery all of his great artists of the time; who had no audience, or collectors, - initial purchases included works by Kees Van Dongen, André Derain, Fernand Léger, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Maurice de Vlaminck and several others of the same generation. Kahnweiler wanted as he said to defend artists he believed in, but only those who had no dealers and whom he believed were great artists. Rather than exhibiting the popular works of the past and present greats, Kahnweiler championed burgeoning artists such as André Derain, Alberto Giacometti, and others, who had come from all over the globe to live and work in Montparnasse at the time. Thus Paul Cézanne although a great artist was considered too old to be represented, and his work was being handled by Ambroise Vollard at the time.

Along with such men as Alfred Flechtheim, Paul Cassirer, and Daniel Wildenstein, Kahnweiler was one of the influential connoisseurs of the 20th century. As a businessman Kahnweiler innovated many new ways of working with artists; and art dealing; - now established practice with art dealers. In 1907 when there were only half a dozen good galleries in Paris, he made contracts with artists to buy all of their work (freeing them from the worry and restraint about cost of living and creating work). He saw them daily to discuss their work, (they were friends, he co-owned little sailing boats with his artists), he photographed each work, (he felt it imperative to have a record), he held exhibitions of their work and he promoted their work internationally. Kahnweiler gave the first exhibition of the work of Georges Braque. He encouraged the practice of Beau Livres (beautiful book), where a contemporary artist illustrates a work of a contemporary writer - he expanded his presentations by bringing together artists, writers and poets to produce their works as a joint project in more than 40 books, so Picasso illustrated the works of Max Jacob etc. In fact as an art and literary publisher he had no equal; being the first to publish works by Max Jacob, Guillaume Apollinaire, André Masson, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, and many others and in so doing launched many literary careers.

So strong a business ability did Kahnweiler have that by the 1950s his art gallery was in the top 100 companies in France in terms of turnover from export.