Léonce Rosenberg was one of the most important French art dealers of the 20th century. He supported Cubist artists right after the Great War when most other dealers would not touch Cubism. The artist and poet Max Jacob is known to have said that without Rosenberg a number of painters would have ended up as drivers or factory workers. Léonce Rosenberg strengthened his relationship with Picasso by buying Harlequin in 1918, but it is not as a supporter of Cubism that I want to draw your attention to but to another aspect of his life. In 1928 Rosenberg embarked on a colossal, ambitious project - the decoration of the apartment he had bought at 75, Rue de Longchmps in Paris. The vision he brought to this project was truly staggering. Although short lived, this project is an important, if not well known, landmark of European art history between the two World Wars.
The spacious apartment in the upscale 16th arrondissement of Paris was going to be the living quarters for Rosenberg, his wife and their three daughters. A group of artists, including Giorgio de Chirico, Fernand Léger, Francis Picabia, Gino Severini, and Max Ernst were commissioned to decorate the rooms which would also feature a selection of antiques and contemporary furniture. Right from the start Rosenberg decided on the principle of assigning each room to a single artist. Quite a feat in itself but what made this project so unique was the art itself. Collectively it was a repudiation of Fascist and Nazi propaganda, each artist proclaiming that modern art was here to stay.
Fascism idealized the classical idea of the male nude and Ancient Rome. The Combat by Giorgio de Chirico, one of eleven works which comprised The Gladiators series, at first glance looks like a depiction of a battlefield with horses and men in combat mode but de Chirico turns these warriors into a far cry from the academic version of warriors - clumsy bodies with flabby musculature, unwarlike expressions and inept in combat - they just seem to fall all over each other. Irony and satire come to mind.
The works of the futuristic, cubist painter Gino Severini at Rue de Luxembourg continue the juxtaposition of a classical theme, ancient ruins, with commedia dell’arte characters. These may have been the sites of a powerful empire but now they serve as meaningless backgrounds or at best as areas for recreation.
Manuel Rendón Seminario, a lesser-known artist of Ecuadorian origin, produced a series of nudes for Rosenberg’s home. These nudes in a somewhat surrealistic landscape with simplified geometric shapes and vibrant colors revisit the origin of Adam and Eve.
The Swiss painter Jean Viollier contributed a triptych consisting of an Ascent to Paradise on the left and a Descent into Hell on the right. The Last Judgment, the central panel, incorporates religious iconography with some jarring contemporary elements like machinery and ladders. The God figure is surrounded by naked apostles or saints, one of which holds a dagger, an angel riding on an enormous black bird whose claw holds a lighted torch, a small man climbing a staircase; industrial machinery, what looks like someone hoping to be rescued from the clutches of a demonic angel. All aspects which tend to alarm and not reassure. Feelings reinforced by the acid colors of the palette.
Francis Picabia’s Transparencies paintings, with different images layered on top of other images, draw their inspiration from human forms as well as the animal and plant world, all uniting in a multi-layered puzzle. These paintings remind us of Classicism and of Botticelli’s Madonnas. If the meaning might escape us, we are enthralled by the esoteric beauty of these very modern works. Gertrude Stein, a friend of Picabia, praised his multi-dimensional paintings for going beyond the flat surface.
Alberto Savinio’s work displayed at the Rosenberg’s apartment reflected a different aesthetic than the work displayed in the same apartment by his brother Giorgio de Chirico. Alberto Savinio was a pseudonym adopted specifically by the artist so his artistic output would not be in the shadow of his famous brother. In The City of Promises, a stack of wobbly edifices, many resembling tombstones, are held together and solidified by fluid highlights which give this city an otherworldly and dreamlike quality.
The exploration of superimposing one layer on top of another layer continues with the paintings Max Ernst did for Rosenberg’s residence. Marx Ernst used the ‘frottage’ technique - different colors layered on top of each other and then scraped off to reveal luminous colors that seem to change when seen from different angles. Flowers of Seashells, a hybrid of floral, mineral and marine elements, features surreal flowers floating in a colorful background.
Léonce Rosenberg commissioned Fernand Léger to create four panels depicting the four seasons and went as far as to suggest some of the details for each panel. In these compositions, objects - grapes, leaves, a wheat beard, a swallow - float on abstract backgrounds, celebrating the everyday life.
Unfortunately, Léonce Rosenberg did not anticipate the global financial crisis of 1929. Within a few years, he had to find smaller lodgings and the works in the apartment were sold in stages. He never quite recovered from this economic downturn although he kept his gallery L’Effort Moderne going. In 1941 he was forced to close the gallery. As a Jew and a supporter of ‘degenerate artists’, Rosenberg had to flee Nazi occupied Paris. In 1947 Rosenberg died a penniless and broken man in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. As of today, part of the collection of 75, Rue de Longchamps is still missing.
This art post is based on the exhibition Léonce Rosenberg’s Apartment. De Chirico, Ernst, Léger, Picabia . . . at Musée Picasso in Paris. I saw it in May 2024.
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