My grandfather's gallery : a family memoir of art and war

Format:

Book

Title:

My grandfather's gallery : a family memoir of art and war

Uniform Title:

21, rue La Boétie. English

Author:

Sinclair, Anne author

ISBN:

9780374251628

Edition:

First American edition.

Publication:

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, [2014]

Physical Description:

224 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 22 cm

Contents:

Prologue -- Introduction -- Rue La Boetie -- Number 21 Under the Germans -- Floirac -- At the Centre Pompidou -- Gennevilliers -- Dealer -- Chateaudun, Opera, and Madison Avenue -- Mother and Child -- Paul and Pic -- Boulevard Magenta -- Pi-ar-enco -- A Long Relationship -- The War Years in New York -- Preoccupations of the Heart -- The Train, Schenker, and the Art of the Possible -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgments.

Summary:

"A singular man in the history of modern art, betrayed by Vichy, is the subject of this riveting family memoir On September 20, 1940, one of the most famous European art dealers disembarked in New York, one of hundreds of Jewish refugees fleeing Vichy France. Leaving behind his beloved Paris gallery, Paul Rosenberg had managed to save his family, but his paintings--modern masterpieces by Ce;zanne, Monet, Sisley, and others--were not so fortunate. As he fled, dozens of works were seized by Nazi forces and the art dealer's own legacy was eradicated. More than half a century later, Anne Sinclair uncovered a box filled with letters. "Curious in spite of myself," she writes, "I plunged into these archives, in search of the story of my family. To find out who my mother's father really was. a man hailed as a pioneer in the world of modern art, who then became a pariah in his own country during the Second World War. I was overcome with a desire to fit together the pieces of this French story of art and war." Drawing on her grandfather's intimate correspondence with Picasso, Matisse, Braque, and others, Sinclair takes us on a personal journey through the life of a legendary member of the Parisian art scene in My Grandfather's Gallery. Rosenberg's story is emblematic of millions of Jews, rich and poor, whose lives were indelibly altered by World War II. Sinclair's journey to reclaim her family history paints a picture of modern art on both sides of the Atlantic between the 1920s and 1950s that reframes twentieth-century art history"-- Provided by publisher.

Personal Subject:

Sinclair, Anne-Family.

Rosenberg, Paul, 1881-1959.

Rosenberg, Paul, 1881-1959. (OCoLC)fst01916600

Sinclair, Anne. (OCoLC)fst00099538

Subject(s):

Journalists -- France -- Biography.

Art dealers -- France -- Biography.

Geographic Term:

France.

Genre:

collective biographies.

Biographies.

Added Author:

Whiteside, Shaun

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Monmouth Public Library	921 Rosenberg 2014	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Salem Main Library	921 Rosenberg, Paul 2014	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

A singular man in the history of modern art, betrayed by Vichy, is the subject of this riveting family memoir

On September 20, 1940, one of the most famous European art dealers disembarked in New York, one of hundreds of Jewish refugees fleeing Vichy France. Leaving behind his beloved Paris gallery, Paul Rosenberg had managed to save his family, but his paintings--modern masterpieces by Cézanne, Monet, Sisley, and others--were not so fortunate. As he fled, dozens of works were seized by Nazi forces and the art dealer's own legacy was eradicated.
More than half a century later, Anne Sinclair uncovered a box filled with letters. "Curious in spite of myself," she writes, "I plunged into these archives, in search of the story of my family. To find out who my mother's father really was . . . a man hailed as a pioneer in the world of modern art, who then became a pariah in his own country during the Second World War. I was overcome with a desire to fit together the pieces of this French story of art and war."
Drawing on her grandfather's intimate correspondence with Picasso, Matisse, Braque, and others, Sinclair takes us on a personal journey through the life of a legendary member of the Parisian art scene in My Grandfather's Gallery . Rosenberg's story is emblematic of millions of Jews, rich and poor, whose lives were indelibly altered by World War II. Sinclair's journey to reclaim her family history paints a picture of modern art on both sides of the Atlantic between the 1920s and 1950s that reframes twentieth-century art history.

Author Notes

Anne Sinclair is Paul Rosenberg's granddaughter and one of France's best-known journalists. For thirteen years she was the host of 7 sur 7 , a weekly news and politics television show for which she interviewed world figures of the day, including Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Madonna. The editorial director of Le Huffington Post (France), Sinclair has written two bestselling books on politics.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In this splendid memoir, journalist Sinclair, director of the French Huffington Post, explores a chapter of her family history colored by Vichy France and Nazi theft. From his elegant gallery at 21 rue La Boetie, Sinclair's grandfather, Paul Rosenberg, became an apostle of modern art, tactfully promoting work by Lauren-cin, Matisse, Braque, Leger, and Picasso. (In 1939, Rosenberg helped organize Picasso's first American retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art.) Forced to flee France for New York in 1940 (with assistance from MoMA director Alfred Barr), Rosenberg's Paris gallery was overtaken by the Germans, its collection seized and dispersed, and the building converted into the Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question. Drifting back and forth in time, Sinclair's narrative presents a complex picture of a sharp-eyed, industrious, and melancholy man. Some of the most vivid moments are devoted to Rosenberg's personal and professional relationship with Picasso. The agreement between the two provided "Pic" (as Rosenberg affectionately called him) security and support while he advanced beyond Cubism. Long reluctant to engage the Rosenberg story, Sinclair calls attention to the difficulties of searching out the past and of grappling with what is found there. Agent: Michael Carlisle, Inkwell Management. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

French TV journalist Sinclair carefully accesses a wealth of family archives in her study of the biggest art dealer in Europe until World War II, her grandfather Paul Rosenberg (1881-1951).Rosenberg and his brother, Lonce, owned separate Parisian galleries; Paul concentrated on 19th-century French painters while his brother saw cubism as the culmination of all painting. It was Lonce who spotted the newest modern artistsin particular, Pablo Picasso. Eventually, in 1918, Paul took over as Picassos agent.Rosenberg and Picasso were inseparable, Paul effectively orchestrating Picassos career while Picasso established Pauls reputation. He hedged his bets by carrying traditional art in his gallery separate from his exclusive relationships with Picasso, Braque, Matisse and others. The author uses her grandfathers correspondence to paste together the story of their flight from Paris and the loss of more than 400 works of art to the Nazis when they took over his gallery. The building became the Gestapo-runInstitute for the Study of Jewish and Ethno-Racial Questions; classical art was sequestered for safe keeping while the degenerate art of the modernists (any art thatdeparted from the canon of what the Nazis considered traditional) was sold or burned. Sinclairs grandfather vociferously opposed the Nazi auction of the modern art, realizing that any profit the Reich received would fall back on our heads [as] bombs. The Rosenbergs fled to New York in 1940, and Paul remained in the forefront of the art world until his return to Paris and the fight to recover his artwork.The book shows the birth of modern art midwifed by a man wed like to know better. Did Sinclair feel a need to protect some family history? Even so, she offers an intriguing window into the art scene of the early to mid-1900s. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Sinclair profiles her maternal grandfather, Paul Rosenberg, a prominent French art dealer whose clients were some of Europe's key modern artists: Gauguin, Matisse, Rodin, van Gogh, Renoir, and Picasso. The Rosenbergs were lucky to flee occupied France to America, but while they were absent, Rosenberg's gallery was raided and the paintings confiscated by the Reich authorities as part of a systematic looting of Jewish dealers and the art of wealthy families under the Reich, modernist art was considered degenerate art. Sinclair pieces together her grandfather's journey through her own memories and Rosenberg's letters to artists and friends, uncovered in recently discovered archives (most entertaining is his correspondence with Picasso). Readers interested in WWII and art under fascism will find this a fascinating read. Sinclair's memoir contextualizes yet another aspect of this tumultuous time, though the narrative is somewhat disjointed; those looking for eloquence will find it in short supply.--Grant, Sarah Copyright 2014 Booklist

New York Review of Books Review

As the Nazi occupation of France approached, the author's grandfather, Paul Rosenberg, was increasingly unsafe on two fronts: as a Jew, and as a prominent promoter of the "degenerate" Modern artists he called friends. His Paris home and gallery displayed their masterpieces (Picasso painted a portrait of Rosenberg's wife and daughter), and Modernism was his passion. When, to save his family, Rosenberg fled to the United States in 1940, he lost to the Nazis his artworks, his historic building and even his French citizenship, which Vichy revoked. As a result, his name was all but erased from history. Sinclair, a leading French journalist, was herself largely ignorant of Rosenberg's legacy until, approaching 60, she inherited cartons of family papers. Intrigued, she launched an investigation and produces, here, a portrait of art endangered by war and by the fanatical efforts of one regime to legislate creativity. Sinclair stops short of pronouncing this a Holocaust story, though certainly her family's material losses were a function of German "purity" efforts. She graciously acknowledges that Rosenberg's vigorous efforts to recover his assets after the war could be "perceived as unseemly by families whose relatives' ashes are forever buried beneath the crematoriums at Auschwitz." Even so, the text is strong as art and cultural history, but occasionally incautious as a document of private pain. When Sinclair pettily cites by name an official who, during her research, seems "chilly," one questions her suitability as a commentator on trauma.