Second gallery, rue d’Astorg, and economic crisis
By the time Kahnweiler was finally able to resume his activity, he had nothing left. He surrounded himself with a new generation of artists whom he brought together in his gallery —the Galerie Simon, located on rue d'Astorg, in the 8th arrondissement in Paris— although the former artists from rue Vignon also returned, with the exception of Picasso. Braque, Vlaminck, and Derain eventually left the gallery permanently, either for artistic or for financial reasons. Kahnweiler represented André Masson, André Beaudin, Eugène de Kermadec, and Henri Laurens, among others.
Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler showed extraordinary resilience in resuming his profession, albeit without ever recovering the fluidity and ease of the pre-war period. In addition, as soon as he set up his venue on rue d'Astorg, the economic crisis, the first signs of which were felt as early as 1922 and that led to the Crash of 1929, weakened his position on the art market. "The Popular Front gave him hope, but the war in Spain two months later suggested that the worst was yet to come. And, indeed, the worst came. Kahnweiler managed to escape to the Limousin region in June 1940. So that he could avoid the racial laws, his sister-in-law Louise Leiris, who had been working with him for years, agreed to act as his nominee."[1] As a German Jew, the gallerist was forced to escape and stop his work abruptly once again. During the Occupation he went back to writing, producing several essays on art history that were later gathered in his book Confessions esthétiques, published in 1963.[2]
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Summary