Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (born Heinrich Kahnweiler, also Henry Kahnweiler)

Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler was an art dealer turned publisher and writer, who became the pioneering champion of Cubism as the first dealer to sign exclusive contracts with Cubist artists such as Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso and as an early theorist of their work. He opened his first gallery, Galerie Kahnweiler, in Paris at 28 rue Vignon in May 1907.

Kahnweiler primarily presented rotating selections of works in his stock by Braque, André Derain, Picasso, Maurice de Vlaminck, and other artists, but did mount four exhibitions at Galerie Kahnweiler starting in October 1907: paintings by Pierre Girieud paired with sculptures by Francesco Durrio; Kees van Dongen (March 1908); Charles Camoin (April 1908); and Braque (November 1908). Kahnweiler also edited four illustrated books around this time, including Apollinaire’s first volume, L’Enchanteur pourrissant (1909; The Rotting Magician), and Max Jacob’s literary debut, Saint Matorel (1910), accompanied by engravings and etchings created by Derain and Picasso, both artists whom Kahnweiler represented. He signed his first exclusive contract with Braque on November 30, 1912 and reached similar agreements with Derain (December 6, 1912), Picasso (December 18, 1912), de Vlaminck (July 2, 1913), Gris (February 20, 1913), and Léger (October 2, 1913) that gave him the right of first refusal for recent works from those artists’ studios. These contracts made Kahnweiler the sole supplier of their Cubist art until the onset of the First World War.

Kahnweiler’s clients included the French collector Roger Dutilleul, Czech art historian Vincenč Kramář, Russian collectors Ivan Morozov and Sergeï Shchukin, Swiss collector Hermann Rupf, American collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein, and German collector-dealers Alfred Flechtheim and Wilhelm Uhde. Among the numerous dealers with whom Kahnweiler established close business relationships before the First World War were Micheal Brenner and Robert J. Coady of New York, Otto Feldmann of Cologne and Berlin, Flechtheim of Düsseldorf and Berlin, Hans Goltz of Munich, Simon Meller of Budapest, Francis Gerard Prange of London, Emil Richter of Dresden, Ludwig Schames of Frankfurt, Alfred Stieglitz of New York, Gottfried Tanner of Zurich, and Heinrich and Justin K. Thannhauser of Munich.

When the First World War broke out in August 1914, the French government declared Kahnweiler, a German national, an enemy alien. He was vacationing in Italy at the time and could not return to France to prevent the sequestration of his possessions, encompassing his gallery and art collection as well as business papers and printed materials. The gallery’s stock was confiscated on December 12, 1914, and subsequently sold in four public auctions supervised in part by Léonce Rosenberg (first three sales) and held at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris between 1921 and 1923. Approximately 3,000 items were sold, including 1,219 works by Braque, Gris, Léger, and Picasso. Kahnweiler eventually moved to Bern, Switzerland in mid-December 1914 with support from Rupf, his longtime friend and loyal client. During the years he was exiled in Bern from late 1914 to early 1920, Kahnweiler was unable to work as a dealer and established himself, instead, as a critic. His essays appeared in such art journals as Der Cicerone, Das Kunstblatt and Die Weissen Blätter under the pseudonym Daniel Henry. Chief among his publications of this period was The Rise of Cubism (1920), considered today a seminal text for the theory of Cubism and a significant catalyst for Picasso’s rise to international acclaim. The book constituted a revised and significantly expanded version of his 1916 text “Der Kubismus,” which itself was an excerpt from his 1915 philosophical treatise entitled Der Gegenstand der Ästhetik (The Object of Aesthetics; unpublished until 1971).

Kahnweiler returned to Paris in February 1920 and opened Galerie Simon at 29 rue d’Astorg. It was named after his close friend and business partner André Cahen, who was also known as André Simon. In 1941 Kahnweiler’s stepdaughter, the dealer Louise Leiris (née Godon), purchased Galerie Simon to prevent its closure as a Jewish-run business (as both Kahnweiler and Simon were Jewish) following discriminatory legislation issued after the rise of the Vichy regime. Kahnweiler collaborated closely with Leiris at Galerie Louise Leiris until his death in 1979.