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Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler
Summary
Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (25 June 1884 – 11 January 1979) was a German-born art collector, and one of the most notable French art dealers of the 20th century. He became prominent as an art gallery owner in Paris beginning in 1907 and was among the first champions of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and the Cubist movement in art.
Kahnweiler was born in 1884 in Mannheim, Baden to a prosperous Jewish family. His family had previously moved from Rockenhausen, a small village in the Palatinate. Kahnweiler grew up in Stuttgart and was trained to study finance and philosophy. His upbringing and education at a German Gymnasium prepared him for his life as an art connoisseur and pragmatic businessman. Early employment in the family business of stock brokerage in Germany and Paris gave way to an interest in art collecting while Kahnweiler was still in his twenties. He opened his first small art gallery (4 by 4 meters) in Paris in 1907 at 28 rue Vignon, at age 23. There was a family precedent for such an enterprise, since his uncle, who ran a famous stock brokerage house in London, was a major art collector of traditional English art works and furniture.
Kahnweiler is considered to have been one of the greatest supporters of the Cubist art movement through his activities as an art dealer and spokesman for artists. He was among the first people to recognize the importance and beauty of Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and immediately wanted to buy it along with all of Picasso's works. Picasso wrote of Kahnweiler, "What would have become of us if Kahnweiler hadn't had a business sense?" Kahnweiler's appreciation of Picasso's talents was especially gratifying to the artist, since he was largely unknown and destitute at the time when many of his most famous works were created.
In his gallery, Kahnweiler supported many of the great artists of his time who found themselves without adequate recognition and little or no interest among collectors.
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