Ambroise Vollard

Who is Ambroise Vollard?

Ambroise Vollard was a French art dealer and publisher born in Saint-Denis, Réunion, who became one of the most influential figures in the late-19th and early-20th century Parisian art world. Moving to Paris to study law, he instead opened a small gallery on Rue Laffitte in 1893 and became one of the earliest champions of then-unknown artists including Paul Cézanne, whom he gave a first solo exhibition in 1895, as well as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh. His gallery and print-publishing ventures helped launch the careers of artists who would define modern art, and he commissioned illustrated books that are today considered landmarks of livre d'artiste publishing. Vollard was also a prolific writer, publishing memoirs and biographical studies of Cézanne, Degas, and Renoir based on his personal friendships with them. He died in 1939 in a car accident near Paris. His personal collection, assembled through decades of dealing, is now dispersed across major museums worldwide, and his role in recognizing then-radical artists remains a defining chapter of art-market history.

Sources: Ambroise Vollard, Recollections of a Picture Dealer (1936) · Rebecca Rabinow (ed.), Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006)