Alain Blondel (art dealer)

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Alain Blondel (born 1939 [1] ) is a French art dealer specialising in Art Deco and contemporary art.

Contents

Biography

In 1959 Blondel began studying architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which led him to discover the forgotten work of the Parisian Art Nouveau architect Hector Guimard. In 1964, he co-directed a short film about this architect, Hectorologie   [ d ], which won the Golden Lion at the 1965 Venice Film Festival in the category of art documentaries. [2]

In 1967, with his sister Françoise, her friend and future hused in paintings, artists' rugs and furniture from the period 1900–1925. [3] IIn 1968, the gallery moved to Rue de Tournon  [ fr ] in a shared room with Alain Lesieutre  [ fr ], taking the name galerie du Luxembourg [Luxembourg Gallery] [4] because of its proximity to the Senate, then moved in 1970 or 1971 to 98, [5] Rue Saint-Denis, in a former banana ripening shed. [3] Continuing to explore the then-disdained artistic movements of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, he made contact with the best surviving representatives of these movements. The gallery produced numerous retrospectives of painters and decorators from the 1920s and 1930s, which would constitute numerous discoveries: Tamara de Lempicka in 1972, [6] Burne-Jones and the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites in 1972, Bernard Boutet de Monvel, the sculptor Rupert Carabin in 1974, the lacquerer Jean Dunand in 1975, neoclassical painters of the 1930s, in 1976. Some of these works have enriched prestigious collections, such as those of the Musée d’Orsay [7] and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1970, he participated in the development of the first Guimard retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, [8] which then exhibited at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris.

After the disappearance of the Luxembourg gallery in 1978, Blondel opened a gallery under his name with his wife Michèle at 4, rue Aubry le Boucher, near the Centre Pompidou. The Alain Blondel gallery continues to organise important retrospectives (Jean Dupas in 1980, Pierre Marcel-Béronneau in 1981, Mayo  [ fr; de ] in 1985, Hector Guimard in 1992 and Federico Beltrán Masses in 2012 [9] ) but specialised in promoting contemporary figurative art. From the 1980s onwards, the gallery began a lasting collaboration with its artists, whom it supported by participating in numerous contemporary art fairs and publishing exhibition catalogues.

In 1999, Alain Blondel published the book Tamara de Lempicka: a Catalogue Raisonné 1921–1980 on the work of Tamara de Lempicka. [10] Since then, he has helped to organise several retrospectives of this artist at London's Royal Academy of Arts in 2004, Milan's Palazzo Reale in 2006, Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes in 2009, and Tokyo's Bunkamura in 2010.[ citation needed ]

In 2004, the Alain Blondel gallery left its premises near the Centre Pompidou to move to the Marais district. At the end of 2014 before retiring, Alain and Michèle Blondel organised their last exposition, Jürg Kreienbühl – Le Muséum d'histoire naturelle [The Natural History Museum], one of the first contemporary painters they supported from the 1970s.

Jean-Marie Oger – his former collaborator for around ten years – has continued to represent certain artists from the gallery since 2015. [11]

Awards

References

  1. ↑ "Alain Blondel". catalogue.bnf.fr. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  2. ↑ Galerie du Luxembourg (Paris, France) (1973). Jean Dunand, Jean Goulden: Galerie du Luxembourg ... Paris ... mai-juillet ... [1973] (in French). Paris (98, rue Saint-Denis, 75001): Galerie du Luxembourg. OCLC   1008533.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  3. 1 2 Swan Bouchet (Art Auction France) (2015). Catalogue de la vente de la collection Yves Plantin – Galerie du Luxembourg (PDF). Corlet. p. 96.
  4. ↑ "Collection Yves Plantin-Galerie du Luxembourg (partie 1) : livres-estampes-affiches". Paris Musées. Retrieved 13 June 2025.
  5. ↑ Jean Dunand, Jean Goulden: Galerie du Luxembourg ... Paris ... mai-juillet ... [1973] | WorldCat.org. OCLC   1008533.
  6. ↑ "Derrière l'influence seventies, l'Art Déco". Madame Figaro (in French). Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  7. ↑ "Musée d'Orsay : Principaux Donateurs". www.musee-orsay.fr. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  8. ↑ "HECTOR GUIMARD" (PDF). MOMA. 1970. Retrieved 13 June 2025.
  9. ↑ "galerie Alain Blondel | AMA | Art Media Agency". fr.artmediaagency.com. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  10. ↑ Blondel, Alain; Lempicka, Tamara de (1999). Tamara de Lempicka: a Catalogue Raisonné 1921–1980. Lausanne: Editions Acatos. ISBN   978-2-940033-28-7. OCLC   41928887.
  11. ↑ "HAPPENING – Technology and expertise for decrypting the art world". Happening.
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