Théophile Briant

Primarily known as a poet, Théophile Briant directed the Paris-based Galerie Briant-Robert in the early 1920s in partnership with Adrien Robert. The gallery promoted the work of living artists and also operated a publishing arm for art books and poetry. Among the more traditional dealers on the Right Bank, Briant stood out because of his embrace of the international avant-garde and his diversified exhibition strategy.

Briant spent his childhood in Brittany and studied law in Paris. After the First World War, in which he served in the artillery, he settled in Paris. There, in 1920, he opened his art gallery at 7 rue d’Argenteuil. While little information exists on Briant, his activities as a gallerist clearly reflect broad scholarly interests in art and literature. Indeed, one of the first shows to attract the attention of the press was dedicated to Pierre Legrain’s bookbinding (November 1923). In January 1924 the gallery hosted a group show of Cubist artists such as Joseph Csaky, Albert Gleizes, Henri Laurens, Jean Lurçat, Louis Marcoussis, Gustave Miklos, Léopold Survage, and Georges Valmier. The following year Briant organized an exhibition of American painters (John Barber, Marsden Hartley, George Biddle, Paul Burlin, Jules Pascin, and Maurice Sterne) and sculptors (Wilheim Hunt Diederich and John Bradley Storrs), which was unusual in Paris at that time. The dealer Léonce Rosenberg wrote a preface for the catalogue, in which he recognized the significance of an exhibition that fostered a deeper understanding of contemporary art from the United States. Briant also mounted solo presentations of Jean Cocteau (June 1925) and the Czech artist Otakar Kubín (November 1926).

Briant also supported many artists whose works were characterized by conservative figuration, such as Pierre Bompard, Edmond Céria, Edouard Degaine, and Edmond Sigrist. In Le collectionneur de peintures modernes (1930), the journalist and art critic André Fage described this period as a “traditionalist renaissance” at the gallery. Nonetheless, Briant organized a diverse range of exhibitions at the gallery. The Dadaist Francis Picabia received three solo shows at the gallery in the late 1920s. In 1929 Briant organized two thematic exhibitions, Exposition de blanc and Adieu au cheval, the latter focusing on representations of the horse by artists ranging from Théodore Géricault to Giorgio de Chirico. By 1930 the partnership with Robert had ended, and the gallery moved to 32 rue de Berri. Briant was forced to shut down his gallery in the early 1930s because of the global economic depression caused by the 1929 stock market crash in the United States.

In 1934, following the example of celebrated Symbolist poet Saint-Pol-Roux, Briant cut ties with the Parisian art world and moved to La Tour du Vent, an old windmill located in Paramé, now Saint-Malo, in Brittany. In 1936 he launched the literary journal Le Goéland and a poetry prize, the Prix du Goéland, to support the work of emerging poets.