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Friday 9 January 2009

Up close and personal

Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque: Aimé Maeght and His Artists
Royal Academy, until 2 January 2009

The role played by dealers in modern French art seems to exceed that of their English counterparts. Perhaps this is because the French were more bombastic and self-serving, but we remember the names of the great dealers such as Vollard or Durand-Ruel. Actually, I think it is because they played a crucial role in the nurturing of the artists they represented which was perhaps more personal and involved than the subtle and retiring English. Aimé Maeght (1906–81) was just such a dealer who, ably supported by his wife Marguerite (1909–77), founded a commercial art gallery in the dark days towards the end of the second world war. He had trained as a master lithographer at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Nîmes, and so knew the art game as an insider. In 1936 he and his wife had set up Arte, a printing studio and advertising agency in Cannes, which also sold radios and modern furniture designed by Aimé. They started showing a few paintings by local artists in the shop window.

From there, international events intervened: Aimé joined the army and Marguerite was unable to run the print workshop on her own, and instead took to selling the paintings brought in to be reproduced by lithography. Aimé meanwhile ran pictures for clients between the occupied zone in the north and the free south, in the process meeting and befriending Bonnard and Matisse. That was the real start of his empire. Commercial partnership with two such giants of the art world ensured his success, though it was a terrific gamble starting a business in 1945. However, with Matisse supplying the inaugural show and Braque fortuitously wanting to move dealers, Maeght was made.

More articles from: Andrew Lambirth | this section

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