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An Hommage to Pierre Matisse: PARIS

Past exhibition
15 September - 11 December 2021
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Overview
An Hommage to Pierre Matisse, PARIS
Mayoral presents an exhibition in celebration of Pierre Matisse, one of the most important modern art dealers in the world, illustrating how he enabled certain Spanish post-war avant-garde artists to achieve recognition throughout Europe and in the United States. The exhibition, curated by Elise Lammer, presents 6 artworks by Miró, Millares, Saura, Rivera, Canogar and Tàpies from Pierre Matisse’s collection.
 
In the 1930s, driven by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, several European artists, gallery owners, curators and intellectuals emigrated to other European countries and to the United States (mainly to New York), thereby paving the way for the international avantgardes. Amongst them was Pierre Matisse, Henri Matisse’s youngest son. The gallery that bore his name, inaugurated in 1931 on the 17th floor of the Fuller Builder, at 41 East 57th Street in New York, hosted more than 310 exhibitions before his death in 1989.
 

Pierre Matisse and Joan Miró. An exemplary relationship that lasted 50 years

Pierre Matisse and Joan Miró met in 1930 through an old friend of the latter’s, the Parisian art dealer Pierre Loëb. At a time when the United States were the envy of the world, Miró, then aged 40 and with his career in full swing, saw the young Matisse as an opportunity to conquer a new territory, as well as an ally for channelling and promoting the new Spanish painting to American critics. Pierre Matisse exhibited Miró’s work from 1932 and organised 35 solo exhibitions from 1933 (with a catalogue prefaced by Ernest Hemingway) until Miró’s death in 1983.

“I must say how moved I am by the courage and enthusiasm with which you are organising this exhibition which, and this is no time to be modest, may have great repercussions, driven by a clairvoyant man of action such as yourself.”

 
Letter from Joan Miró to Pierre Matisse (16th November 1936)

 The exemplary relationship between Pierre Matisse and Joan Miró lasted 50 years. It enabled them both to write their own chapter in the history of art; in fact, as a politically engaged art dealer, he was arrested by the Spanish police in the middle of the war for having crossed the border with money intended to pay for a painting by Miró. Whilst Matisse played an essential role in Miró’s institutional success, especially by means of his first major retrospective at MoMA (1941), Miró, one of the instigators of Spanish informal art in the United States, used his reputation to promote the work of the members of the El Paso group across the pond.

 

“Personally, I think that there is only one way to be an art dealer, and that is to stay friends with your painters.”

 
Letter from Pierre Matisse to Joan Miró (17th June 1945)
 

“Four Spanish Painters”, an exhibition by Pierre Matisse which prefigured those at MoMA and the Guggenheim

In March 1960, on Miró’s advice, Matisse organised a reshowing of the Barcelona exhibition of the El Paso group, exhibiting the works of Millares, Canogar, Rivera and Saura. “Four Spanish Painters” attracted the attention of the New York press and kick-started the careers of several of its members in the United States, before the major collective exhibitions at MoMA (“New Spanish Painting and Sculpture”, 1960) and the Guggenheim (“Before Picasso; After Miró”, 1960), which established the international reputation of the group.
 
Pierre Matisse included Manolo Millares, Antonio Saura and Manuel Rivera as his gallery artists and he did some solo shows of them. He played a considerable role in promoting the new Spanish painting, which expressed the post-war trauma and anxiety caused by Franco’s dictatorship, amongst the American public.
 
The galerist was also very close to his artists, as demonstrated by his abundant correspondence with those he represented. Extracts of these letters accompany the documentation selected for the exhibition.

“Personally, I think that there is only one way to be an art dealer, and that is to stay friends with your painters."

 
– Pierre Matisse
 
 Exhibition curated by Elise Lammer.
Download Press Release
Installation Views
  • Exposition Pierre Matisse Paris 2021 Web2 2
  • Exposition Pierre Matisse Paris 2021 Web3
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News
  • Un hommage à Pierre Matisse : une conversation entre Claudine Grammont et Elise Lammer modérée par Siân Folley

    Un hommage à Pierre Matisse : une conversation entre Claudine Grammont et Elise Lammer modérée par Siân Folley

    Claudine Grammont, Elise Lammer and Siân Folley talks about the exhibition "Un hommage à Pierre Matisse" at Galeria Mayoral, Paris November 19, 2021
    An Hommage to Pierre Matisse, Galeria Mayoral, Mayoral, Barcelona, Paris, Tàpies, Miró, millares, Canogar, Rivera, Saura, Exhibitiom
    Read more
  • Pierre Matisse and the Spanish avant-garde | Elise Lammer

    Pierre Matisse and the Spanish avant-garde | Elise Lammer

    Elise Lammer, curator of "Pierre Matisse and the Spanish avant-garde" talks about the exhibition at Galleria Mayoral, Paris-Barcelona September 11, 2021
    It is not rare today to witness the same artist evolving across multiple galleries over the course of their career. Typically an artist would enter...
    Read more

Related artists

  • Manolo Millares

    Manolo Millares

  • Joan Miró

    Joan Miró

  • Antonio Saura

    Antonio Saura

  • Antoni Tàpies

    Antoni Tàpies

  • Manuel Rivera

    Manuel Rivera

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PARIS

 

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 paris@galeriamayoral.com

+33 1 42 99 61 78 

BARCELONA

 

Consell de Cent 286, 08007 Barcelona

 

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11.00 h. - 14.00 h.

 

 Closed:

· 09/06, 23/06 & 24/06/2025

· From 31/07/2025 to 31/08/2025

 

info@galeriamayoral.com

+34 934 880 283 

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