In term of quantity of artworks, Léonce Rosenberg, cubist dealer but also rival of Kahnweiler who acted as expert of the first and second sale, is the second most important buyer but his name was also used to buy for his own clients who wished to remain anonymous. It is still unclear which proportion of the purchases was for him, which for his brother Paul Rosenberg and last for clients such as André Lefèvre or Sacheverell Sitwell, an English writer and art critic. Indeed, in the wide range of buyers, many of them sent friends, agents or were buying under fake names to keep their purchase confidential. Among those present at the sales, we find many international dealers such as Thannhauser, Flechtheim, Brummer, Paul Guillaume, Bernheim-Jeune, major collectors Alphonse Kann, Baroness Gourgaud, André Level, Alfred Richet but also art critics Maurice Raynal or Adolphe Basler and all young artists from this time: sculptors Jacques Lipchitz and his fellow Oscar Mietschaninoff, Dadaïst André Breton, Paul Eluard, Robert Desnos, Tristan Tzara. Amedée Ozenfant and Le Corbusier, creators of the Purist movement were buying as consultants for the collector Raoul La Roche. Being fully confident in their taste, La Roche gathered, thanks to the Kahnweiler sales, an impressive collection of Cubist works. Instead of selling off his Kahnweiler acquisitions for fast profits – like several other major collectors did – La Roche kept his collection intact until he gave a part to the Musée national d’art moderne, Paris in 1952 and the same year another part to the Kunstmuseum Basel, completed by a second gift there in 1963. In a letter to his parents, on November 1921, Le Corbusier described the event: "have participated last week in the Kahnweiler sequestration sale (all Cubist paintings from the beginning). Bought the 6 finest Picassos and the nicest Braque for a friend. Have kept 2 Picassos that are in my house, and 1 Braque at Oz[enfant] as the opportunity was too good. Prices have plummeted because of the slump and paintings were taken by people like us at prices five times lower than those in galleries." (Letter by Le Corbusier to his parents, 21 November 1921, archives Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris) Some artists in the Kahnweiler’s stable, especially Léger or Braque protested vehemently against the sales and refused to be part of this economical disaster but other young artists were acting as consultants and wanted a part of the plunder.
Beside Ozenfant and Le Corbusier who kept some works for their own collection thanks to the generosity of La Roche, the case of André Breton together with Paul Eluard needs to be detailed as they are particularly representative of buyers who purchased works they loved and that they couldn’t have afforded in other circumstances, but also, more or less despite themselves, contributed to the high speculation on cubist artworks just following the sales, using art as form of currency.
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Summary