A major challenge : representing Picasso
When Sam Kootz was interviewed by the Archives of American Art in April 1964,[i] he explained that Stephen Clark was his most important client, and that by 1948 he had already bought six or seven paintings by Picasso. Kootz claims that in the spring of 1948 he closed down his 57th Street gallery to become Picasso's exclusive agent at the request of the artist, who advised him to set up an apartment in New York and another one in Paris to be able to show the works privately on both sides of the Atlantic. Kootz seized the opportunity, but after a few months, when his New York apartment had gradually become a public space where people dropped in at all hours, with no privacy whatsoever, he ended up reopening a dedicated gallery. Apparently what spurred the decision was an unfortunate and rather comical incident: early one morning, Stephen Clark rang the doorbell to see one of Picasso's new works and Kootz opened the door in his pajamas, thinking it was the doorman.
In a recent interview, Françoise Gilot expressed her doubts as to the reliability of this account. Although Picasso was still at odds with his dealer Kahnweiler, the two of them had managed to reach an agreement about producing lithographs jointly with the Mourlot printmaking studio: Kahnweiler had paid for the entire production in advance, and in exchange he would receive fifty proofs of each edition to sell on the international market through his New York associate Curt Valentin. Kootz's story really does seem too good to be true: even if Picasso could conceivably have suggested that Kootz show his works privately or even represent him in the United States, he never would have run the risk of losing his long-standing dealers, and he certainly would not have trusted Kootz to represent him on the European market: the American with the rough manners who did not speak a word of French would never have been capable of defending his interests. We have not found any correspondence from Kootz to Picasso from this period that would confirm these facts, and if we look at the evidence against them, there were other Picasso exhibitions held in New York that same year, 1948, on 57th Street: from March 16 to April 3, Paul Rosenberg's gallery showed about thirty pieces dated from 1913 to 1947; after that, from May 3 to 29, the Durand-Ruel Galleries, jointly with Louis Carré, showed fifteen recent Picassos. Were these dealers trying to mount a tour de force to discourage Kootz or impress Picasso? As the two shows featured works from 1947, Picasso could hardly have been unaware of them; in fact, he was probably involved in their organization. However, his position remains unclear, and it is certainly possible that the artist asked Kootz to represent him in the United States. The dealer was known for his straightforward manner, his audacity, and his commitment to modern art, and while representing Picasso fit his strategy of placing young artists in the limelight, it also stood to benefit the Spaniard, a member of the French Communist Party since 1944, in the midst of the Cold War. As Serge Guilbaut describes in his essay "Picasso-Picassiette: les tribulations d’un agent double au temps de la guerre froide"[ii] Picasso was playing in both fields, and saw Kootz as a fabulous advocate for his art in the United States when its society was in the throes of a witch hunt. Let us not forget that the artist had been under FBI surveillance since he had joined the Communist Party in March 1950, and that the American Consulate refused to issue a visa for him to attend a peace mission. The purpose of the visit was to take the delegates to the World Peace Congress in Washington, in an effort to convince President Truman and the US Congress to ban the atom bomb. Kootz himself never really took an ideological stance, but did send the artist the articles that appeared in the American press and deplored that Picasso was not allowed to travel and freely share his views.[iii]
[i] Dorothy Seckler, Oral Interview with Samuel Kootz, April 13, 1964, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
[ii] Serge Guilbaut, "Picasso-Picassiette : les tribulations d’un agent double au temps de la guerre froide," in Picasso, l’objet du mythe, ESNBA, Paris, 2005, and reproduced on the website www.picasso.fr
[iii] Letter from Sam Kootz to Picasso, March 7, 1950, Archives Musée Picasso, Paris.
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Summary