Berthe Weill,
Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-garde

Weill’s Beginnings
Weill’s career as an art dealer was shaped by her working for some two decades in the shop of Salvator Mayer, a distant cousin who sold antiques as well as paintings and prints. Upon Mayer’s death in 1896, she followed in her mentor’s footsteps and established a modest antique shop that featured drawings, caricatures and collectibles.

The Galerie B. Weill
In 1901, Weill transformed her antique shop into an art gallery called Galerie B. Weill. Working with the Catalan businessman Pedro “Père” Mañach, she enlisted the help of art-world friends to launch her business. It was Mañach who convinced her to focus on contemporary artists and assisted her during the gallery’s first months.

Picasso’s Beginnings at the Galerie B. Weill
Weill met Picasso in 1901, through Pedro Mañach, who shared a studio with the artist on Boulevard de Clichy. She exhibited the Catalan artist’s paintings and drawings in four group exhibitions in 1902 alone, and continued to do so for the next three decades, even as he turned to other dealers, such as Clovis Sagot and Ambroise Vollard, to sell works.

Welcoming the Fauves
Most of the Fauves, or “wild beasts,” first showed their paintings in Weill’s gallery before they attracted critical attention. They gained their moniker thanks to the critic Louis Vauxcelles, who coined it in response to the crude brushwork and boldly coloured paintings exhibited at that year’s Salon d’Automne. Despite their initially scandalous reception, such works were quickly deemed in demand.

A Space for Cubism
Starting in the early 1910s, Weill exhibited several artists who adopted the geometric vocabulary of Cubism pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. Although she had known these two forerunners for years, they turned to Weill’s better financed competitors to sell their Cubist works. Yet Weill still figured among the first dealers to provide a platform for other champions of this rapidly growing modern art movement, including Fernand Léger, Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger.

“Sumptuous nudes, angular figures, ravishing portraits”
Her admiration for Modigliani led Weill to organize his first and only solo exhibition during his lifetime, which opened on December 3, 1917. The show contained over thirty paintings and drawings. The nudes were few in number, but their visible body hair sparked a scandal. Weill had to shut down the exhibition and remove the paintings from view to avoid confiscation: she claimed not to have sold any works other than the few she purchased herself.

Broadening the History of Art
Although Weill helped launch the careers of dozens of young artists – or “les Jeunes,” as she called them – her unflagging curiosity and desire to support her protégés were often at odds with the gallery’s financial well-being. She repeatedly promoted obscure expatriates with no connections in Paris, and staunchly championed women artists in a chauvinistic and sometimes backwards art market.

The Late Years of Galerie B. Weill
The Galerie B. Weill closed its doors in 1941 during the Nazi occupation of Paris. Yet her lack of financial assets allowed Weill to remain under the radar for the duration of WWII. Destitute and in poor health, she struggled to survive. In December 1946, a number of prestigious artists and gallerists came to her rescue, organizing a benefit auction to help her. The money raised was enough for Weill to live comfortably until her death in 1951.