21 Rue de la boétie

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De Nederlandstalige tentoonstellingscatalogus bij de expo '21 Rue de la Boétie' die in het najaar van 2016 in La Boverie te Luik te zien was.

The idea for this exhibition came from reading the book 21 rue La Boétie by Anne Sinclair, in which the author tells the story of her grandfather, Paul Rosenberg , one of the great art dealers of the first half of the last century. The career of this exceptional man, a successful businessman and knowledgeable art lover, the friend and agent of Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Léger, Marie Laurencin, to name but some of the most well-known artists, serves as the guiding theme through a much wider history than his own, one in which he was both actor and victim. In other words, an exhibition on art and civilization, with the legendary gallery of Paul Rosenberg serving as the pivot to 20th century period paintings that combines the history of art, social and political history and the history of mentalities as these unfolded in France, Europe and the United States.

For the occasion, we are bringing together some 60 masterpieces of modern art of which the majority have never been exhibited in Belgium. Visitors will be able to enjoy exceptional paintings by top masters of modern art coming from some of the greatest museums around the world as well as from private collections.
A significant portion of these works are linked directly to Paul Rosenberg, having transited through his galleries in Paris or New York. Rosenberg was an emblematic witness to a crucial turning point in the history of art: the shift of the centre of artistic gravity from one side of the Atlantic to the other, due of course to the upheavals caused by the Second World War. By a cruel irony of history, Rosenberg’s gallery on rue La Boétie in Paris became in May 1941 the headquarters of the Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question, an anti- Semitic French office supported by the German Propagandastaffel. Paul Rosenberg was himself the victim of the torments of his age, having been stripped of his French citizenship by the Vichy regime because he was Jewish, and despoiled of a large number of his art works by the German occupiers. Some of those works are still reappearing 70 years later, thanks to the vagaries of history.

In addition, a selection of exceptional documents, never before exhibited, from European and American archives, will illustrate the particular relationship that links artist to dealers, and will shed light on how the art market developed at the beginning of modernity. A series of scenographic, audiovisual and multimedia presentations will supplement the visit through the exhibit and provide more in-depth coverage of the historical themes addressed by the exhibition.