Berthe Weill

Berthe Weill (Paris 1865 – 1951) was a French art dealer who played a vital role in the creation of the market for twentieth-century art with the manifestation of the Parisian Avant-Garde. Although she is much less known than her well-established competitors like Ambroise Vollard, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and Paul Rosenberg, she may be credited with producing the first sales in Paris for Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse and with providing Amedeo Modigliani with the only solo exhibition in his lifetime. (See poster advertising the exhibition.)

The impressive list of artists who made their way through her gallery and into the canon of modern art continues with names such as Raoul Dufy, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Diego Rivera, Georges Braque, Kees van Dongen, Maurice Utrillo, Pablo Picasso, François Zdenek Eberl and Jean Metzinger. Her role was also important in the early exposure and sales of women painters such as Suzanne Valadon, Emilie Charmy and Jacqueline Marval. "Of the nearly 400 exhibitions she mounted, one third included works of art by women artists," wrote the ''New York Times'' in 2024.

In 1933, Weill published her memoirs, an account of thirty years as an art dealer, from which many historical renditions quote. Her gallery lasted until 1939, and notwithstanding the number of luminary artists that passed through her gallery, she remained poor and destitute her whole life and after her death was almost forgotten. Recently, interest in Berthe Weill has become more significant. In 2007, Picasso's portrait of Berthe Weill (1920) was designated a French national treasure. In 2009, her memoirs (1933) were republished and a compilation of her gallery exhibitions; in 2011, the first study dedicated to her life and dealership was published by leading Weill scholar Marianne Le Morvan. In February 2012, the City of Paris decided to place a memorial plaque at 25 rue Victor Massé (Paris), where Berthe Weill opened her first gallery in 1900. Provided by Wikipedia