New Directions

Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Ambrose Vollard, oil on canvas, 1910


 
      Marc Chagall called Vollard “a great precursor.” Matisse recalled: “More than ten years ago, I met Vollard for the last time at Vittel.  I reminded him of one of the old anecdotes he liked to bring out about female logic.  Afterwards he said ‘Monsieur Matisse is a very dangerous man because  he has an excellent memory.’” It has been recounted that in his shop on Rue Lafitte, piled high with Cézanne’s and Van Gogh’s paintings, Vollard used to light a lamp at dusk and pretend to sleep.  He hoped to hear the opinions of possible collectors and passersby concerning the young painters whose works were hanging in the windows of his gallery and whose success he was anxious to share.  When an aspiring young art dealer asked his advice, Vollard replied tersely, “You sleep a lot.”

 

Pierre Bonnard, Ambrose Vollard and his cat, oil on canvas, 1904-5




      With shrewd judgement Vollard had quietly acquired a magnificent collection of modern paintings.  His policy of buying low and selling high inevitably brought results far exceeding even his own aspirations.  He was willing to follow the advice of the artists who were forging a new vision but who were generally unaccepted by the Academy and ignored by many critics and dealers.  He took the risks of dealing in their paintings, drawings and prints, which were not then fashionable.  With seldom-challenged authority and a gruff dignity, Vollard assumed his exceptional position in the art world of Paris.  But to Vollard this early success was simply a stepping stone, a means to still another objective.  It was on the publishing of fine prints, albums, and illustrated books that he proceeded to spend – and lavishly – the growing wealth that modern paintings had brought him.  For nearly forty-five years his publishing ventures were to occupy his time, his thoughts and his tireless energy.  It was through them that he realized his desire for eminence as a publisher and entrepreneur.


From:  Una E. Johnson, Ambrose Vollard, Editeur (Prints, Books, Bronzes), New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1977.

One of many “basement dinner parties” held by Ambrose Vollard at his gallery.

Pierre Bonnard, La Petite Blanchisseuse (The Little Laundry Girl), color lithograph, 1896.  This image appears on the cover of Una Johnson’s MOMA book/catalogue.

The Savage God Was Nice To Children (Charles Terrasse's Account)

  

Alfred Jarry, Lithographic cover for one of three issues of Répertoire des Paintins, executed at the time of the 1898 marionette revival of Ubu Roi at composer Claude Terrasse's Théâtre des Pantins, Paris.

    I can still hear my mother telling me sadly:  “You know, my little one, he is dead, the poor man.”  And we really felt the hurt of it, it was my first real grief.  For he was a most charming companion to us children.

         I know nothing of Jarry the man of letters, whom so many others knew.  But the simple, kind and childlike Jarry, the friend to children, deserves to be remembered.   This was the Jarry I knew, the one who spoke to children with the heart of a child.

 

Alfred Jarry in 1903-4

    First of all, there was the Théâtre des Pantins, at 6, Rue Ballu, near the Place Blanche.  To the small children we then were, my brother Jean and I, this theater was a place full of enchantment, a forbidden paradise.  It was there, at the table, that I so often picked up and played with those puppets which represented Père Ubu, Mère Ubu, the Palotins, and especially, the Bear.

 

Pierre Bonnard:  Claude Terrasse and his two sons, Jean and Charles, 1903.  Bonnard, who designed the original Ubu Roi set and two years later with Jarry, its marionette cast, was Claude Terrasse's brother-in-law and uncle to his memoirist son.

    I often saw them sitting around this table, sorting out the puppets, or repairing them, or just talking.  Firstly there was Uncle Pierre, Pierre Bonnard, here the puppet maker but otherwise, because he was of course a painter, it was he who had decorated the theater.   Then my father and Franc-Nohain, Ferdinand Herold, and finally, he who I never heard called anything except Père Ubu, but whom I called, using the familiar “tu,” just plain Alfred:  Alfred Jarry.

 Pierre Bonnard, Self-Portrait, 1906.

     One night he provoked my father into a duel.  A duel with gruyere and red wine.  Who could finish first, eating three or four ounces of gruyere cut into tiny pieces, or drinking a glass of wine, both with a teaspoon.  Neither one of them managed it, they both laughed so much, the one at the sight of the other swallowing, the other because he could no longer swallow at all.

Another of the three issues of Répertoire des Paintins with Alfred Jarry lithographic cover, 1898.

    He taught me many things.  He remembered so much from his school days.  And it was he who taught me my first word of Latin, and, by repeating it the way he said it, I can still remember it the way he said it:  T-A ta B-E-R taber N-A  taberna C-U cu nacu bernacu tabernacu L-O lo culo naculo bernaculo tabernaculo R-U-M rum  lorum culorum  naculorum  bernaculorum tabernaculorum.  It has to be said all in one breath.

  

Alfred Jarry, Ubu letterhead design for Théâtre des Pantins, 1898.

    He always seemed the same, a kindly man, who rarely laughed, but who was never morose either, although he was sometimes a little sarcastic, but he always regarded me with a beautiful smile, and whenever I approached him he would always deposit on my forehead his little mechanical kiss.

Page from the original theatrical program for Ubu Roi, performed one time only on December 10, 1896.

 

NOTES:

1. “After us, the Savage God” -- William Butler Yeats,  after attending the premiere performance of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, Théâtre de l’OEuvre, Paris, December 10, 1896, which resulted in a riot and the banning of the play.  

2.  Charles Terrasse's moving anecdotes above are excerpted from Alastair Brotchie's essential and highly recommended Alfred Jarry,  A Pataphysical Life , published 2011 by MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.