Limited Edition PRESS KIT Vollard, Petiet and Modern Master Prints

Exhibition until August 29

INFORMATION petitpalais.paris.fr

Aristide Maillol, La Vague, wood engraving, 1895-1898, Petit Palais, donation Indivision Petiet 2020 © Paris Musées / Petit Palais

PRESS CONTACT Mathilde Beaujard [email protected] / +33 1 53 43 40 14 Limited Edition. Vollard, Petiet and Modern Master Prints

Contents

Press release p. 3

Exhibition guide p. 5

Mediation p. 9

Visit app p.10

Exhibition design p. 11

Exhibition catalogue p. 12

Paris Musées p. 13

About the Petit Palais p. 14

Information p. 15

Pierre Bonnard, Affiche pour la Revue Blanche, 1894. 4-Color Lithography © Paris Musées / Petit Palais

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Press release

In this ground-breaking exhibition, the Petit Palais explores the work of the famous art dealer Ambroise Vollard as a publisher of prints and illustrated books. Vollard worked with the greatest artists of his times: Picasso, Bonnard, Cassatt, Chagall, Maillol, Redon, Rouault, to name but a few. Passionate about printma- king, that is where he invested the bulk of the fortune he made selling paintings by the masters of modern art, taking it to new, unprecedented levels. Having benefited from several gifts and bequests from Vollard himself and his heirs, the Petit Palais has under- taken to shine a light on this exceptional collection of prints, illustrated books and limited edition artworks (bronzes and ceramics), enriched by numerous loans from other institutions and collections.

The exhibition is also an opportunity to evoke the name of Aristide Maillol, La Vague, wood engraving, 1895-1898, Petit Palais, donation Indivision Petiet 2020 Henri Marie Petiet, Vollard’s successor and a major figure in © Paris Musées / Petit Palais the post-war print trade. The exhibition therefore pays double tribute to the roles of these two art dealers and publishers.

The brilliant career of Ambroise Vollard (1866-1939) made him a major player in the art trade at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, on a par with Paul Durand-Ruel and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. It was he who promoted the likes of Cézanne and Gauguin, and opened his doors to a young Pablo Picasso.

In addition to selling paintings, Vollard threw himself heart and soul into publishing prints as early as 1894, when he released a new edition of Gauguin’s Volpini Suite. But the adventure really got off the ground when he produced two famous albums of prints and engravings (1896 and 1897) which featured prints from masters such as Fantin-Latour, Puvis de Chavannes, and new artists who were the embodiment of a new modernity like the Nabis, in the footsteps of Redon. Vollard distributed works by Mary Cassatt but also published the famous Saltimbanques suite by Picasso as well as individual albums of works by Bonnard, Vuillard and Denis, betting on the same principle of publishing artists’ prints in limited editions.

At the same time, Vollard expanded his publishing activity to include artists’ books, investing himself fully, both financially and personally. However, it wouldn’t be until the 1920s, and especially the 1930s, that his publi- cations really began to sell, and a craze for them took hold. Ever the perfectionist, Vollard himself chose and placed orders for the paper and typefaces. In doing so, Vollard became an artist in his own right, at the head of a whole host of individuals involved in an editorial adventure of monumental proportions.

From his first publications, notably the masterful Parallèlement of Verlaine’s poetry illustrated by Bonnard (1900), bibliophiles were shocked by Vollard’s approach, and especially by his predilection for colour litho- graphy. But the publisher’s reputation was well-established. Many major publications followed, such as Le Jardin des supplices (illustrations by Rodin, 1902), Sagesse (Maurice Denis, 1911), Les Fleurs du mal (Emile Bernard, 1916), Le Chef-d’œuvre inconnu (Picasso, 1931) and Passion (Rouault, 1939). His influence on artists was such that he encouraged painters to take an interest (which sometimes proved long-lasting) in prints of course, but also to try their hand at painting ceramics or at sculpture, a good example being Maillol.

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Gyula Halász, known as Brassaï, Ambroise Vollard at home, 1934, photography © Paris Musées / Petit Palais / Brassaï © Estate Brassaï - R M N - Grand Palais

In 1939, Vollard died suddenly in a car accident. Henri Marie Petiet (1894-1980), who had been sourcing from Vollard since the 1920s, bought up the bulk of his prints, including Picasso’s famous Vollard Suite, which he undertook to distribute. Petiet immediately emerged as Vollard’s successor in selling prints, but also as an ambassador of French modern art around the world, especially in the United States. Petiet himself published some artists who had worked with Vollard, like Maillol and Derain, and went on to publish an artists’ book, Les Contrerimes by Toulet, illustrated by Jean-Émile Laboureur, his favourite engraver. He also promoted new artists such as Marie Laurencin, Marcel Gromaire, and Édouard Goerg, the latter dubbing him the “most Vollard-esque of dealers”.

The exhibition is designed to help people gain a better understanding of the techniques of printmaking and publishing. It includes printmaking tools and a copper printing press on loan from the French national printing works (Imprimerie nationale), which will be activated during live demonstrations. Lastly, visitors can enjoy a lively guided tour of the exhibition by downloading the museum app, due to launch in tandem with the exhibi- tion. The app, whose contents will also be available on the museum’s video guide, takes visitors through several key works and offers a glimpse of the unique and endearing personalities of Vollard and Petiet themselves through several anecdotes. There will also be a small area dedicated to creating a printed page with typeface and ornamental patterns.

Curator: Clara Roca, curator of graphic arts and photography from the 19th and 20th centuries at the Petit Palais

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Exhibition guide

Vollard an extraordinary art dealer and publisher There was nothing about Ambroise Vollard that hinted he would become an internationally-acclaimed art dealer/ publisher. The son of a lawyer who left Reunion Island to come to mainland France to study law, he abandoned his studies to enter the art market. After a brief apprenticeship in the Parisian art gallery Union artistique, he launched out on his own in 1890 in Paris’ 17th arrondissement before setting up shop in a more advantageous location in 1893 at 37, rue Laffitte. When finances allowed, he moved several times on the same street to bigger rental spaces. He was in the very heart of the art dealing district at the time. Vollard’s atypical business approach consisted of buying collections of works at low prices, and even the entire content of the art studios of young avant-garde artists like Pablo Picasso and André Derain. He took a risk by banking on delayed success, thus guaranteeing the material security of many budding artists. Although known primarily as a dealer of paintings, Vollard also traded in the graphic arts, and especially prints, from the start. He bought and resold prints and did not hesitate to re-publish works. Thanks to him, the artists whose work he exhibited, loaned and sold all throughout Europe, and even the United States, gained recognition. In doing so, Vollard helped shape a certain version of the history of Western art at a time when the official Salon, stymied by a conservative attitude, paid little heed to modern art.

Pierre Bonnard, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard with a cat, circa 1924 Oil on canva © Paris Musées / Petit Palais

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Vollard publisher of prints

From about 1896 to 1900, Ambroise Vollard published original prints for the most part. His first major publication consisted of two albums that offer an overview of printmaking at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries: Les Peintres-graveurs in 1896, followed by the Album d’estampes originales de la galerie Vollard in 1897. For these first two publications, Vollard did not turn to professional printmakers but rather painters, whom he also encouraged to try their hand at sculpture and painting ceramics. In doing so, he was trying to draw the attention of not only those interested in modern prints but also painting, by offering limited series of prints, numbered and signed by the artists and standing as works of art in their own right. It was part of his strategy to set himself apart from the myriad of photomechanical reproductions and popular prints in circulation at the time. Despite these efforts, Vollard’s two albums were a commercial flop. His first steps as a publisher were nevertheless hailed by some critics who championed original prints and colour lithography, long disdained for its use in advertising. In his work La Lithographie originale en couleurs, André Mellerio, Edvard Munch, Album des peintres graveurs, plate Le Soir : Angstefühl, 1896. an art critic close to the Nabis, emphasised and praised Vollard’s 2-color lithography, Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art, commitment to this technique. Jacques Doucet Collection

Vollard publisher of artists’ books

While books were becoming more and more accessible thanks to mass production, Vollard published limited editions, keeping to 200-400 copies in general, targeting a rich and elitist clientele. From 1900, he revived highend books with the publication of Verlaine’s masterful Parallèlement, illustrated by Bonnard. From the outset, several constant features emerge: a predilection for antiquated typeface and good-quality paper, and the precedence of image over text. For Vollard, the books that artists seized upon were conceived as a “succession of paintings”. His talent lay in pairing just the right text with just the right painter, becoming a sort of artist himself in turn. The ambitious publishing programme of Vollard is striking in its diversity. One part is so daring as to revolutionise the artists’ book, while another part was designed to appease the bibliophiles who were shocked by the provocation. One final period of publications in the 1930s witnessed the arrival of artists who breathed new life into Vollard publications, vindicating his ambitions. All throughout his career, Ambroise Vollard was also Jean Puy, Le Père Ubu à la guerre, 1923 Softback copy the proud author of books whose illustration he entrusted to the Vellum print illustrative etchings artists he appreciated. © Paris Musées / Petit Palais © ADAGP, Paris, 2021

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The heirs of Vollard

A tragedy for his collaborators and especially for artists, the untimely death of Ambroise Vollard at the dawn of World War II left some 20 artists’ books unfinished to different degrees. The art dealer/publisher died without a direct heir, leaving only a will dating to 1911. But his situation had changed dramatically since then: his private home on rue de Martignac housed a treasure trove of master works the value of which is very difficult to estimate. In July 1939, Lucien Vollard, Ambroise’s brother, asked Roger Lacourière to establish a list of editorial works in progress. With the help of Martin Fabiani, an art dealer infamous for his misdeeds during the Second World War, Lucien set out to complete and publish some of his brother’s unfinished projects. Others were taken over by artists themselves or new publishers on the scene like Tériade and Maeght. The whole of Vollard’s print collection was saved when Henri Marie Petiet bought it in one fell swoop, picking up where the late art dealer/publisher had left off. He sold Picasso’s famous Vollard Suite and published works by artists whom Vollard had discovered such as Aristide Maillol.

Petiet, Vollard’s spiritual heir

Hailing from a family of engineers, industrialists and military men, nobody suspected Henri Marie Petiet either of becoming a great art dealer and publisher of prints one day. Active from 1924 to his death in 1980, he worked from his store À la Belle Épreuve on rue de Tournon in Paris’ 6th arrondissement. From a very young age, he developed a taste for highend books and built up an impressive library. But it was illustration that led him to prints. At the time, Petiet was trained by dealers who had made a name for themselves in the field, including Ambroise Vollard, from whom he made his first purchases in 1924. Petiet shared Marc Chagall, Les grenouilles qui demandent un roi Vollard’s taste for daring publications and supported a diverse (preliminary gouache for les Fables de La Fontaine), circa 1927 crowd of artists that included Marie Laurencin, Jean-Émile Gouache on paper, Private collection, Laboureur, Édouard Goerg and André Dunoyer de Segonzac. © ADAGP, Paris, 2021 But his greatest achievement was buying, in 1940, Vollard’s print collection, which he never ceased adding value to.

Petiet stands out for his unusual openness to Europe and espe- cially the United States. In 1927, he set out to conquer America with the help of his childhood friend Jean Goriany. He helped build or enrich private collections and many a museum department of prints: from Bonnard to Picasso, the artists whose works he sold strengthened their reputations across the Atlantic. He who was known in the profession as “Le Baron” had also come to deal in modernity.

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In the studio

This space shines a light on printmaking and the manufacture of high-end publications. Demonstrations of copperplate printing will take place in partnership with the French national printing works (Imprimerie nationale) with the copperplate printmaker Frédéric Colançon.

Georges Rouault, Femme, nu de profil, Georges Rouault, Femme, nu de profil, plate for Les Fleurs du Mal, 1936-1938 plate for Les Fleurs du Mal, 1936-1938 Print, aquatint, Private collection Print, aquatint, Private collection © ADAGP, Paris, 2021 © ADAGP, Paris, 2021

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Mediation

In the exhibition

• Labels are placed throughout the exhibition with explanations about the techniques of printmaking and artists’ books. • A video on lithography techniques is shown in the “Vollard, publisher of prints” section. Filmed in the workshop of contemporary printer and publisher Michael Woolworth, it reveals the traditional colour lithography process, from initial drawing on stone to successive prints with overlapping colours. • Lithography tools are on display in a nearby showcase: a lithography stone with an original image and drawing tools. • Printing demonstrations on an antique copperplate printer, on loan from the French national printing works, are held in the last section of the exhibition, “In the workshop”, during the entire exhibition. Demonstrations are carried out by the printmaker Frédéric Colançon from the French national printing works and by printmakers from the museum’s education department.

Educational workshops at the museum

Visitors may participate in workshops about the artistic practices involved in printmaking and artists’ books: • a workshop about how artists’ books are made, led by the artist Joël Leick. For adults and teens. • different workshops and demonstrations/workshops about the techniques of printmaking and artists’ books led by printmakers and engravers from the museum. For adults, teens, children and families.

More information on petitpalais.paris.fr/activites-et-evenements

A mini-site dedicated to the exhibition

An site created especially for the exhibition lets users create and share their own limited editions.

Choose a format, compose a text with one of Ambroise Vollard’s favourite typefaces, and select one or more decorative patterns before downloading, printing or sharing your creations on social media.

Maurice Denis, Amour, couverture, 1892-1899 Three-color lithography, © Paris Musées / Petit Palais

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Visit app

The Petit Palais launches a web app to guide visitors through the museum and its collections. It consists of general routes to help visitors explore the rich collections at their own pace. Users can choose from three tour options: 12 masterpieces, 30 must-sees, or a self-tour of the collections.

This educational tool is designed for different types of visitors and includes a tour for children and families that focuses on images of animals that appear in museum works. General tours in English and Spanish can also be downloaded.

The app also includes a section dedicated to making the museum accessible to all audiences: a tour with audio descriptions, a tour in French Sign Language, and an Easy Read tour option.

Lastly, the app will help the Petit Palais further its reach with a visit that goes beyond the walls of the museum. In addition to the permanent collection, visitors may explore temporary exhibitions for an extra 2.99 euros. A dedicated tour of the exhibition Limited Edition is also available.

The mobile app can be accessed remotely or at the museum on Android and iOS. Visitors who do not wish to download the app on their mobile device can rent a video guide with the full range of tour options (5 euros).

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Exhibition design

The exhibition is laid out in five sections within the rectangular space of the gallery. The idea is to preserve transparency while creating thematic sub-spaces: perpendicular floating ceilings, partitions with giant photo- graphs at the entry to each section, unhindered perspectives, suspended showcases, etc.

The geometry of the space is echoed in the charcoal grey edges of the picture hanging supports: a nod to the bin- ding of books. A few colored walls help to visually mark off the different sections and create an attractive ground for works on display. The discreet exhibition design guides the eye and lends structure to this rich exhibition.

Exhibition design: Atelier Maciej Fiszer

Photo C. Delfino

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Exhibition catalogue

An extraordinary figure of the art market at the turn of the century, Ambroise Vollard (1866-1939) stood out for his venturesome boldness, daring to support modern artists like Cézanne, Gauguin, a young Picasso and Rouault. A complex and enigmatic person, Vollard was also passionate about prints and artists’ books, pouring much of his energy and financial means into tireless appeals to artists and collectors. At the end of the war, Henri Petiet (1894-1980) bought up the whole of the contents of Vollard’s gallery. He was already a client of Vollard’s, sourcing prints by Bonnard and Picasso on a regular basis. It was Petiet, notably, who had Picasso sign the famous “Vollard Suite”. Superbly illustrated, this work sheds light on the major role these two dealers played in the specific field of publishing prints and artists’ books.

160 pages, 150 illustrations Paris Musées publications 29 euros

Each year, Paris Musées publishes some 30 works, including exhibition catalogues, guides to collections and short reviews. The illustrated publications reflect the broad scope of the museums of Paris and diversity of temporary exhibitions. parismusees.paris.fr

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Paris Musées, a museums network

Administratively grouped together as Paris Musées, the fourteen museums and heritage sites of the City of Paris possess collections that are as exceptional for their diversity as for their quality. To open up and share this significant cultural heritage, they have adopted a new visitor experience policy, moderated prices for temporary exhibitions, and focus on providing access to members of the public who traditionally lack access to cultural offerings. Their permanent collections, which are free*, and the temporary exhibitions and varied cultural pro- gramming reached 3 million visitors in 2018.

Get the Paris Musées card!

A card can be bought from Paris Musées, which gives unlimited access, ahead of the queue, to the temporary exhibitions in all 14 of the museums of Paris*, as well as special tariffs for activities. It entitles the holder to reductions in the bookshop-boutiques and the cafe-restaurants, and to receive prior information about events in the museums. In 2014, the card was bought by 9000 people.

Information is available at the Museum ticket offices or on parismusees.paris.fr.

*Except the archaeological Crypt under the forecourt of l’île de la Cité and the Catacombs.

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The Petit Palais

Built for the Exposition Universelle de 1900, the Petit Palais building is a masterpiece by architect Charles Girault. In 1902, it became the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts and presents a very beautiful collection of paintings, sculptures, furnishings and art objects dating from Antiquity to 1914.

Among the museum treasures are an exceptional collection of Greek vases and a very large group of Flemish and Dutch paintings from the seventeenth century, displayed around the famous Self-Portrait with Dog by Rembrandt. A magnificent collection of French paintings from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries includes major works by Fragonard, Greuze, David, Géricault, Delacroix, Courbet, Pissarro, Monet, Sisley, Cézanne and Vuillard. The museum is also very proud of a very beautiful collection of sculptures by Carpeaux, Carriès and Dalou. The © C. Fouin collection of decorative art is especially noted for objects from the Renaissance and the 1900s, including glasswork by Gallé, jewelry by Fouquet and Lalique and a dining room designed by Guimard for his private mansion. Finally, the museum has an outstanding graphic arts room featuring complete series of engravings by Dürer, Rembrandt and Callot and a rare collection of Nordic drawings.

Since 2015, the collection presentation has been extensively reworked. It has been enriched by two new galleries on the garden floor level, one of which is dedicated to the Romantic period. In one gallery, restored large-format paintings by Delaroche and Schnetz are surrounded by works of artists such as Ingres, Géricault and Delacroix. In the second gallery, decorative paintings by Maurice Denis are interspersed with works by Cézanne, Bonnard, Maillol and Vallotton. In the fall of 2017, the collection of icons and Eastern Orthodox arts, which is the largest one in France, will benefit from a new museographic presentation. An area will also be dedicated to sketches of the major nineteenth-century Parisian © B. Fougeirol settings. Early in 2018, these new presentations will be complemented in the North Gallery by collections of monumental sculptures from the nineteenth century.

The program of temporary exhibitions at the Petit Palais alternates ambitious major subjects like Paris romantic, Paris 1900, Les Bas-fonds du Baroque (Baroque Slums) and Oscar Wilde with monographs that allow rediscovering forgotten painters such as Anders Zorn, Albert Besnard or George Desvallières. Since 2015, contemporary artists (Thomas Lerooy in 2015, Kehinde Wiley in 2016, Andres Serrano in 2017, Yan Pei-Ming in 2019 and Laurence Aëgerter in 2020) have been invited to exhibit in the Petit Palais permanent collections in order to create a dialog with these paintings and reveal links between their works and those of the museum.

© B. Fougeirol petitpalais.paris.fr

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Information

PETIT PALAIS Limited Edition Fine Arts Museum of Paris Avenue Winston Churchill, 75008 Paris Vollard, Petiet +33 (0)1 53 43 40 00 and Modern Master Prints Accessible to people with disabilities

Exhibition until August 29 Access Metro Opening hours Lines 1 and 13: Champs-Élysées Clemenceau More information on petitpalais.paris.fr Line 9: Franklin D. Roosevelt

Admission RER Line C: Invalides Tickets only available online Full price: 11 euros Bus Reduced price: 9 euros Lines 28, 42, 72, 73, 83, 93. Free of charge up to 17 Café restaurant ‘Le Jardin du Petit Palais’ Open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm Late opening on Friday until 8pm

Bookshop Open from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, Late closing at 9 pm

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