Make Way for Berthe Weill Exhibition Review:
“Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde”
Berkshire Fine Arts, October 6, 2024
By Jessica Robinson
Berthe Weill, a fiercely independent Jewish Parisian art dealer, was a woman ahead of her time. With a keen eye for the avant-garde, she helped launch the careers of some of the most iconic names in modern art. Picasso? She sold his first works. Modigliani? She organized his one and only solo exhibition during his lifetime. The show was shut down by police on the opening night, as they judged the nudes to be “indecent.” Consequently, no works were sold; the impoverished artist died three years later.
But Berthe Weill wasn’t just about the big names. She was one of the few dealers to champion women artists at a time when the art world barely gave them the time of day. She exhibited the works of Suzanne Valadon, one of the first female painters to break through in a male-dominated scene, and Émilie Charmy, known for her bold and expressive style. Weill didn’t just hang their art on her walls; she fought for their place in art history.
In her candid memoir, Pow! Right in the Eye!—recently translated into English—Weill described herself as having a “difficult personality.” She wasn’t wrong. Her sharp tongue and uncompromising attitude were well known. Picasso biographer John Richardson even described her as a “peppery, homely Jewish spinster with spectacles thick as goldfish bowls.” Yet it was her fiery personality and unrivaled intuition for spotting talent that made her a key figure.
Weill wasn’t just an art dealer who sole Picasso’s first works– she was a trailblazer, carving out space for the radical, the new and the unheard. How inexplicable that such a pivotal figure has flown under the radar for such a long time.
This article is also published in Buzzfeed and Medium.
Image: Marc Chagall, Bella à Mourillon, 1926. Oil on canvas, 18 1/8 x 25 5/8 in. (46 x 65 cm). Private collection © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris