Picasso and Vollard

The year is 1900 and the 18-year-old Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) is a newcomer to Paris, where he is captivated by the city’s avant-garde art scene. Here, he meets one of the city’s most influential art dealers, Ambroise Vollard (1866-1939), who the following year sets up Picasso’s very first exhibition in Paris. This would be the start of a lifelong friendship between the two great personalities of 20th century art history. 

The art dealer

Ambroise Vollard was an art dealer, writer and publisher. He came to Paris in 1887 from the French colony, Île de la Réunion, in the Indian Ocean to study law, but was soon absorbed by the city’s art scene, spending much of his time perusing the stalls along the Seine for books, graphic prints and drawings.

He started art dealing in around 1890, and his actual breakthrough came in 1895, when he arranged the first solo exhibition of the works of Paul Cézanne, who was completely unknown in Paris at that time. This signalled the start of an outstanding career as an art dealer, patron and publisher for artists such as Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas. He had a flair for promoting the greats of the avant-garde movement through exhibitions, the publication of graphic works and illustrated art books, which spread awareness of the artists all over the world.

Vollard opened his gallery in Paris at a particularly opportune time. The state-owned annual art exhibition, “The Salon”, at the French Academy of Arts (Académie des Beaux-Arts) had dominated the art scene for centuries and, from 1748-1890, was the largest annual art event in the Western world. But the jury behind “The Salon” was not open to the avant-garde, allowing a number of small independent art dealers and experimental galleries to flourish in 1890’s Paris.

Picasso’s portraits

The exhibition at the legendary art dealer’s in 1901 was Picasso’s entry ticket to the Parisian art scene. Vollard subsequently published two graphic series for Picasso, “Les Saltimbanques” (1913) and “The Vollard Suite” (1930-37), commissioned by the art dealer himself. It consisted of 100 etchings depicting a sculptor in his studio with his muse and a number of classical mythological figures.

Picasso painted two very different portraits of Vollard. The first he painted in 1910 in the relatively new monochrome cubist style, intended to convince the art dealer not only of his great talent, but also of the many possibilities of Cubism, such as the reproduction of likeness in the faceted expression. The second portrait was painted after Vollard’s death, in c. 1945, and is an abstract colourist depiction of the art dealer with his cat.

The latter is now in a private collection. However, in the true spirit of Vollard, it was published as a graphic work by the publisher Lacourière in 1960, and it is one of these numbered prints that is set to go under the hammer at Bruun Rasmussen’s international art auction.

Auction: 5 March at Bredgade 33 in Copenhagen

Preview: 21-25 February at the same address

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