My Grandfather's Gallery
A legendary art dealer’s escape from Vichy France
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Descripción editorial
On 20 September 1940, Paul Rosenberg disembarked in New York, just one of hundreds of tired Jewish refugees fleeing Vichy France. Leaving behind his celebrated Paris gallery, Paul had managed to save his family; his paintings weren't all so fortunate. Some - the Picassos at MoMA's first retrospective - were already safely abroad. But dozens of works by Cézanne, Monet and Sisley were seized by Nazi forces, destined for Swiss galleries and private collections.
Drawing on her grandfather's astonishingly intimate correspondence with Picasso, Matisse, Braque and others, Anne Sinclair takes us on a personal journey through the life of a fêted member of the Parisian art scene and a friend to the greatest artists of the century. But Paul's flight from his beloved gallery to exile in New York also tells a darker story, emblematic of the millions of Jews, rich and poor, who lost everything in the Second World War.
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In this splendid memoir, journalist Sinclair, director of the French Huffington Post, explores a chapter of her family history colored by Vichy France and Nazi theft. From his elegant gallery at 21 rue La Bo tie, Sinclair's grandfather, Paul Rosenberg, became an apostle of modern art, tactfully promoting work by Lauren cin, Matisse, Braque, L ger, and Picasso. (In 1939, Rosenberg helped organize Picasso's first American retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art.) Forced to flee France for New York in 1940 (with assistance from MoMA director Alfred Barr), Rosenberg's Paris gallery was overtaken by the Germans, its collection seized and dispersed, and the building converted into the Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question. Drifting back and forth in time, Sinclair's narrative presents a complex picture of a sharp-eyed, industrious, and melancholy man. Some of the most vivid moments are devoted to Rosenberg's personal and professional relationship with Picasso. The agreement between the two provided "Pic" (as Rosenberg affectionately called him) security and support while he advanced beyond Cubism. Long reluctant to engage the Rosenberg story, Sinclair calls attention to the difficulties of searching out the past and of grappling with what is found there.
