Clovis Sagot

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Clovis Sagot (* 1854 ; † February 1913 ) was originally a French clown who was an art dealer in Paris from 1904 . He became known as one of Pablo Picasso's first art dealers after Pere Mañach , Ambroise Vollard and Berthe Weill .

Live and act

Clovis Sagot gave up his work as a clown in the Médrano circus and in 1904 bought an old pharmacy at 46 Rue Laffitte in Paris, which he converted into a small gallery. To distinguish him from Edmond, an older brother of Sagot - an art dealer who dealt in engravings - Clovis Sagot was called "le frère" (the brother).

In 1905, Pablo Picasso, in need of money, invited Clovis Sagot to visit his studio in the Bateau-Lavoir . Sagot chose three works and wanted to pay 700 francs, which Picasso refused. After further negotiations, he had to accept the last offer of 300 francs. Among the three works were two gouaches, The Three Dutch Women and Naked Girl with a Flower Basket from 1905. Picasso later described Sagot to the French photographer Brassaï as “almost a usurer”.

Picasso introduced the art collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein to the Sagots Gallery. On this occasion, Leo Stein bought his first painting by Picasso, Naked Girl with a Flower Basket from the Pink Period in 1905 , which his sister Gertrude Stein did not like. The painter Marie Laurencin had an exhibition at Sagot in 1907 in which she introduced Picasso to Guillaume Apollinaire . A little later, Laurencin and Apollinaire became a couple.

The art dealer Clovis Sagot
Pablo Picasso , 1909
Oil on canvas
82 × 66 cm
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

In 1909 Picasso painted an oil portrait of Clovis Sagot, which the gallery owner acquired from the artist. The painting is currently hanging in the Hamburger Kunsthalle . It shows only relatively minor approaches to cubist abstraction. In an article in the Spiegel from 1981 it is speculated whether Sagot had any influence on the design of the picture: “Clovis Sagot, probably painted by Picasso in the spring of 1909, is sitting there (at his own request?) Pretty intact. Cubism is only hesitant about his jacket, his head is completely unbroken, even if it is so oversimplified that one can only guess whether he is viewed with sympathy or perhaps ironically. "

In 1911 Sagot did not buy any more works by Picasso, because the asking price was beyond his financial means, and turned to the cubist works of the young painter Juan Gris , for whom he also organized his first exhibition.

Clovis Sagot died in February 1913. Apollinaire wrote an article in the newspaper L'Intransigeant on February 13, 1913 in his memorial, in which he described him as “a kind of Père Tanguy of the young painters of today” and stated that he had died at the time when the criticized works traded by him began to become famous. Sagot's widow continued the gallery until the beginning of World War I in 1914. The gallery offered works by Picasso, Gris, Auguste Herbin , Albert Gleizes , Fernand Léger , André Lhote , Marie Laurencin, Jean Metzinger and Otto van Rees .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James Timothy Voorhies: My Dear Stieglitz: Letters of Marsden Hartley and Alfred Stieglitz, 1912-1915. UNIV OF SOUTH CAROLINA PR, 2002 (online)
  2. ↑ Quoted after the web link kubisme.info
  3. ^ Brassaï: Conversations with Picasso , p. 19
  4. ↑ The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas , Chapter 3 , adelaide.edu, accessed September 4, 2013
  5. ↑ Marie Laurencin , rogallery.com, accessed September 3, 2013
  6. ^ The broken jacket , in: Der Spiegel 52/1981, p. 153 f.
  7. ↑ Juan Gris , artchive.com, accessed September 3, 2013
  8. ↑ Guillaume Apollinaire: Mort de M. Clovis Sagot , L'intransigeant, 13 février 1913 ( online )
  9. ↑ Quoted after the web link kubisme.info
personal data
SURNAME Sagot, Clovis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French art dealer
DATE OF BIRTH 1854
DATE OF DEATH February 1913