The role of Louise Leiris
Alongside Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler–the "man of art," as his biographer Pierre Assouline nicknamed him[1]–we cannot overlook the presence of Louise Leiris (1902-1988). She managed the gallery for over sixty years. Their lives were intertwined within their family and in their profession; their names are inseparable. Kahnweiler's daughter-in-law, assistant, successor, and eventually legatee, Louise Leiris devoted–as he did–her entire life to defending the art of her time. The collection comprising over 200 works in both their names, which she donated to the Musée national d'art moderne jointly with her husband in 1984, was presented at the Centre Pompidou (November 22,1984-January 28, 1985), while the tribute paid to the "dealer, publisher, and writer" bore witness to their powerful symbiosis.
Louise Godon was the daughter of Lucie, married in 1904 to a 20-year-old German by the name of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler who was crazy about art and yearning to open a gallery. Being what at the time was referred to as a "natural child," she was presented as her mother's younger sister, and continues to be described as such in some biographies. In their writings, Kahnweiler and Leiris kept the family secret; it was not revealed until after their own deaths and those of Lucie and Louise, when the Journal was published in 1992.
When Kahnweiler opened a new gallery on the rue d’Astorg in September of 1920–the Galerie Simon, bearing the name of his partner–he decided to hire an assistant, and offered the position to his sister-in-law/daughter-in-law. That was how Louise Leiris entered the field where she would remain for the rest of her life. In 1924, Leiris began attending the Sundays in Boulogne at the Kahnweilers', and proposed to Louise Godon, but "in the most incredibly conventional manner, beginning by asking for her hand and then not daring to court her in any way other than sending her flowers and poems, while remaining cold and silent in her presence."[2] To such a degree that she actually turned him down! On February 2, 1926, Michel Leiris finally married Louise. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Picasso became closer to Kahnweiler, who was hard hit by the economic crisis and had been his dealer before 1914. The couple began seeing Picasso on a regular basis, even though until 1939 Picasso's work was handled by Paul Rosenberg, with whom he showed regularly. His business relationship with the gallery was sporadic. For example, he published a lithograph series with them in 1928.
The Leirises went through many crises in their marriage, for example, in the 1930s ("I have made up my mind to get a divorce, to leave, to do anything–everything! But I can no longer stand the futility of a life without love," Journal, January 1934, p. 248) and again in the 1940s. After the Liberation, during a trip to the Ivory Coast, Michel Leiris wrote in his journal: "What I have learned (or confirmed) on my last trip is that I don't want to leave Z [Louise Leiris, nicknamed Zette]; I no longer believe in Africa nor in blacks (no better than any other population); travel has lost its mythological dimension for me [...]; I find ethnography boring, and the only thing I wish for is to have as little to do as possible at the ethnographic museum at Trocadéro." (Journal, June 3, 1945, p. 423).
Early in the summer of 1941, Louise Leiris approached the Vichy government's Bureau of Jewish Affairs to buy the Kahnweiler gallery, which had been subjected to an "Aryanization" process. The gallery became the "Galerie Louise Leiris." Picassos were occasionally shown there during the Occupation. The Leirises saw the painter almost daily; his output during the war years was particularly prolific. In 1937, in the attic at 7 rue des Grands Augustins, Picasso set up the studio where he was soon to paint Guernica–the subject of a text by Leiris, "Faire Part": "Everything we love is going to die." Beginning in January of 1941, Picasso started living in this studio. He wrote, painted, and sculpted without respite and received many visitors. In the spring of 1942, Louise and Michel Leiris moved to 53 bis, quai des Grands Augustins. The friends would often meet at Le Catalan restaurant, on 25 rue des Grands Augustins.
From 1937 to 1945, from the Spanish Civil War to the Liberation of Paris at the end of the Second World War, along with Robert Desnos, Georges Limbour, and Georges Hugnet, the Leirises were regular witnesses to Picasso's work in the attic studio. In a constant flow of exchanges and shared experiences, literature and art converged from day to day.
On March 19, 1944, a "public reading" of Desire Caught by the Tail was held at the Leirises' home. Picasso's manuscript was reviewed by Michel Leiris. The text is close to automatic writing, and evokes eroticism and death, but also the context of the war. Albert Camus took it upon himself to direct the staging of the event. Among the performers were Michel Leiris playing Big Foot, Jean-Paul Sartre as The Round End, Raymond Queneau as The Onion, Louise Leiris as the Two Bow-Wows, and Simone de Beauvoir as The Cousin. A hundred people attended the event–including Jacques Lacan and Pierre Reverdy, according to the photographs taken by Brassaï. As a token of his appreciation, Picasso gathered his friends at the studio the following June 16. This event marked the beginning of the break between Camus and Sartre, since Camus had not thought much of Simone de Beauvoir's performance and costume. Jean-Paul Sartre remained close to the Leirises, to whom he dedicated The Respectful Prostitute.
Leiris went to great lengths to protect Kahnweiler during the war, supplying him with false papers that the collector only accepted "to please him."[3] The Kahnweilers ended up leaving the Limousin and heading for Lot-et-Garonne.
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Summary