An Art Lover’s Collection: Galeries Jeanne Bucher Jaegar Since 1925
OK I admit I went
round this exhibition backwards so was rather confused! Note to self ‘I must
learn French’! Once I got to the early rooms, my last, things made a lot more
sense! The show was arranged chronologically and went through the three
generations of the family who had run and nurtured the gallery, looking at how
the taste of the individuals and the artists they promoted.
I was fascinated
by the first proprietor, Jeanne Bucher, who had been a nurse in the First World
War and a librarian (hurray!) who moved to Paris in 1922 and opened a library
for foreign books which became a meeting place for artists and writers. She
began using this space to exhibit art including work by Picasso, Braque and Max
Ernest and this grew into the gallery. She continued to operate during the
occupation with a poet making false papers and Resistance leaflets on the
ground floor and hiding the photographer Rogi-Andre. What a life!
I must admit the
later art that the gallery they promoted left me a bit cold although I was
interested in how the gallery worked with Japanese and Chinese artists. They
seemed to have specialised in rather muted abstract art however there were
blasts of colour such as Nicholas de Stael’s blocky landscape of Sicily.
Closed on 24
September 2017
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