Berthe Weill. Avant-garde art dealer. At the Orangerie, Paris

 

Modigliani: Nu au collier de corail (Nude with coral necklace) 1917
Oberlin, Allen Memorial Art Museum

In 1917 Berthe Weill's art gallery was at the epicentre of a scandal.  The police were called in and she was told to remove "that garbage" from the window! The problem was 4 paintings of nudes, complete with pubic hair, by Modigliani, which were judged to be an outrage to public morality. Berthe Weill's was the only gallery to give Modigliani his own exhibition during his lifetime. Her instinct and curiosity led her to promote young painters, many of whom are now considered as the  great artists of their day. 

André Derain: Pont de Charing Cross (Charing Cross Bridge) ca 1904 
Paris, Musée d'Orsay 

 Derain's brightly coloured fauvist work above is an example of the kind of outrageous  (for the time) works Berthe Weill displayed in her gallery. Fauvists and Cubists benefitted from her art dealings.

With great courage and without prejudice regarding nationality or gender, she chose to show what she liked, for example the cubist work by female artist Alice Halicker (1894-1975):

Alice Halicker: Nature Morte au violon (Still life with violin) 1918 
Bordeaux, musée des Beaux Arts

As an example of her bravery, Berthe Weill exhibited a work by Belgian Symbolist artist Henry de Groux showing Emile Zola being insulted at the time of the Dreyfus affair.

Mlle Weill was the first to sell Picassos in Paris when he came from Spain to the 1900 world fair. She did this even before she had opened her antiques and art boutique - at 25 rue Victor Massé in the Pigalle area of Paris, near Montmartre where many artists lived. The following pastel by Picasso was shown in her gallery in 1904: 

Picasso: La Fin du numéro (The end of the number) 1901 pastel
Barcelona, Picasso Museum

Picasso's style at this point was similar to that of Toulouse Lautrec. Here is one of Picasso's paintings from his 'blue' period which Berthe Weill invested in, exhibited by her in 1902 as 'The Tub':

Picasso: La Chambre bleue (The blue bedroom) 1901
Washington, D.C., The Phillips Collection

At this point, such works were not easy to sell. Several of the 300 and more artists whose works Berthe Weill exhibited became good friends, like Raoul Dufy. His "Vie en Rose" has been loaned from the Paris Museum of Modern art:      

Raoul Dufy: Trente ans ou la Vie en rose (Thirty years or Life in the pink) 1931 
Paris, musée d'Art moderne

Each year she suggested a theme to 'her' artists. 1931 was 'La Joie de vivre'. Dufy was celebrating along with Berthe Well thirty years of her gallery's existence. By this time the gallery was in the 9th district of Paris. She held a masked ball there.  She was now well established, despite financial ups and downs. The above painting prompted Gertrude Stein to say "Dufy is pleasure". The Pompidou Centre has loaned another work by Dufy- his 'Flag-decked street':

Raoul Dufy: La Rue pavoisée (The Flag-decked street) 1906
Paris, Centre Pompidou

Dufy was associated with the group of Fauvist painters which included Matisse, Marquet, Camoin, Derain and other students of Gustave Moreau at the Arts School. She defended their cause before the title of 'Fauves' (wild beasts) was given to them at the Autumn Salon of 1905.

Several paintings and drawings in this present exhibition portray Berthe Weill herself. The following one, with rather a Picasso feel to it, is by a woman artist Emilie Charmy whom Berthe had spotted at the Salon des Indépendants in 1905.  They became life-long friends :  

Emilie Charmy: Portrait of Berthe Weill 1910-14 
Montréal, musée des Beaux-Arts

A self portrait by Emily Charmy demonstrates what a bold painter she was. Writer Roland Dorgelės described her work as having the grace of a woman and the strength of a man:

Emilie Charmy: Autoportrait (Self-portrait) 1906-7 
Private Collection

Charmy figured in no less than 30 exhibitions at Berthe Weill's gallery. Besides painting portraits and nudes Emilie travelled down to the South of France and Corsica, along with her Fauvist friends, capturing the strong colours of the South in her landscapes:  

Emilie Charmy: Piana Corsica 1907-10

Another bold woman painter was Suzanne Valadon, whose work below Berthe Weill exhibited in 1927. She had been backing the artist since 1913 despite many detractors.

Suzanne Valadon: La Chambre bleue (The blue bedroom) 1923 Paris, Pompidou Centre

  Czech painter Georges Kars portrayed Berthe Weill in an almost caricatural way:

Georges Kars: Dans le salon de peinture (In the painting room) 1933 
 Private Collection

Berthe's family was a modest Jewish one, with its origins in Alsace. Her father was a ragman and her mother Jenny Lévy a seamstress. One of seven children, all born in Paris, Berthe was apprenticed when she left school at 14, to Salvator Mayer, well-known prints and picture dealer, their cousin, where she learnt her trade. After her employer died, Berthe's brother Marcellin helped her to set up her own shop, with only 50 francs in hand. From very simple beginnings, Berthe Weill built up a business which eventually made a profit, but had to close in 1940 because of anti-Jewish laws in France. She managed to hide during the Occupation of Paris, possibly in Emilie Charmy's studio.

Hungarian artist Béla Czóbel (1883-1976) was given his first exhibition in France by Berthe Weill. She did not heed the violent, and xenophobic, criticisms of his work:

Béla Czóbel: L'homme au chapeau de paille (Man with straw hat) 1906 
Ursula and Stanley Johnson Collection

Alfred Reth (1884-1966) was an avant garde Hungarian artist who settled in Paris in 1905 and frequented Gertrude Stein's salon. He explored cubism and later the Abstraction-Creation movement in the thirties:

Alfred Reth: Forme dans l'espace (Form in space) 1934 
Paris, Galérie Le Minotaure

Berthe Weill continued to follow modern trends in art until the end of her career- leading her to abstract movements.  Her last gallery was in the rue Saint-Dominique in Paris's 7th district. 

Otto Freundlich: Composition 1939  Pontoise Museum

Otto Freundlich's work is displayed here alongside his companion's Jeanne Kosnick Kloss. The latter's grave is very near Van Gogh's in the cemetery of Auvers. Freundlich, who produced many black and white and coloured abstract compositions, is remembered on Jeanne's grave, but he died in the concentration camp of Majdanek in 1943.

Jeanne Kosnick-Kloss: Composition 1934  Pontoise, musée Tavet-Delacour

As for Berthe Weill, she was living extremely frugally after the closure of her gallery. In 1946 a sale was organised, with over eighty paintings offered by her old friends. This sale allowed her to live comfortably in retirement until her death in 1951.

The present exhibition's intention is to give a determined and audacious art dealer -Berthe Weill- her rightful place in art history. It started in the states last October at NYU's Grey Art Museum, followed by a summer showing at the Beaux Arts in Montreal. This is a last chance to see an excellent exhibition at the Paris Orangerie near the Concorde square from October 8th, 2025 until January 26th, 2026.  It also provides another opportunity to see Monet's exquisite water lily rooms, as well as the Walter-Guillaume post Impressionist collection with more Modiglianis, Utrillos, Soutines and many others. The Orangerie Museum alone is worth the trip to Paris!

 Musée de l'Orangerie, Place de la Concorde, Jardin des Tuileries, 75001 Paris.

Metro: Concorde.

Opening times: Wednesday to Monday, 9am to 6pm. Closed Tuesdays.

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