Daniel Lelong, the French gallerist who developed deep relationships with some of the most important and influential modern artists of the 20th century, died this morning at the age of 92.
“He lived a long, good life.” Mary Sabbatino, vice-president and partner at Galerie Lelong & Co., told ARTnews. She started working with Lelong in 1990. “It’s always sad, you know, but it’s not a tragedy. It really was a big life. He enjoyed his life. You could feel that all the time. He always had a smile. He was really happy being an art dealer.”
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Jean Fremon, the gallery’s CEO and remaining original partner, told ARTnews in an email, “What can I say? Daniel and I have been business partners for the last 50 years. Anyone who knew Daniel would remember him as a warm and positive person.”
Fremon noted that Lelong had stepped back from daily work at his namesake gallery in the last 15 years but the two men kept a close relationship “until these last days”.
Born in 1933 in Nancy, France, Lelong studied law and worked as a civil servant at the Conseil d’État. Then-influential French art dealer, collector and publisher Aimé Maeght invited Lelong to draft the statutes of what would become the first contemporary art foundation and museum: the Marguerite and Aimé Maeght Foundation.
Lelong called the experience “a thrilling adventure”. “There was no model for such status: no contemporary art or modern art foundation existed in France, back then,” he told Flash Art in 2014.
The foundation opened in 1964, and Lelong asked to be placed on leave from his job, during which he started working full-time at the Galerie Maeght.
At the gallery, Lelong was assigned administration tasks like transportation, insurance, and financial matters. He also worked on exhibitions for many artists who would become modernist icons: Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Alberto Giacometti, Antoni Tàpies, Francis Bacon and Eduardo Chillida.
In 1981, Maeght died, and Lelong become the director of Galerie Maeght-Lelong alongside Jean Frémon and Jacques Dupin. It became Galerie Lelong & Co. in 1987. They opened a location in New York in 1985. There was also a location in Zurich.
“He was an art dealer from a different time, right?,” Sabbatino said. “He showed at the first Art Basel in [1970]. So much of the history of the, I would say, the mid 20th century from the 60s onward, which is lost to a lot of people, right? Because the people who lived through that, who are alive, are very few.”
“He really loved life. He was very positive person. He always looked on the bright side. He he really liked artists. He liked people. This seems like a minor characteristic, but actually it infiltrated, every way he ran the gallery. He was really interested in people, and he enjoyed them, and he enjoyed selling. He had this little book where he kept all his sales going back to the ’60s.
Throughout his career, Lelong continued to develop deep relationships with artists such as Jaume Plensa, Jannis Kounellis and Sean Scully. “Pierre Alechinsky, is like, the same age as Daniel and his, his whole career has been at the gallery,” Sabbatino said.
Lelong also built sold many works to major collectors like Norman Braman, Joseph H. Hirshhorn and Jon Shirley. “The Braman’s house in Florida, all those Calders, all those Mirós, came from his long friendship with Daniel,” Sabbatino said. “He always would say, ‘Joe Hirshhorn would come to the gallery and he’d buy the whole show.’ Many works in the Hirshhorn [Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC] came from Galerie Lelong, or a number of them, of certain artists.”
“He was very instrumental in building many collections.”
Lelong also wrote and published books, including one on Calder and several volumes of Miró’s catalogue raisonné co-authored by his daughter Ariane Lelong-Mainaud.
Outside of the gallery, Lelong’s other interests included a love for music, and singing. “He gave concerts,” Sabbatino said with a big laugh. “I remember my first Léo Ferré survey album came from him as a gift. [He] was a friend of his.”
He also brought art to one of the world’s most famous tennis competitions. In 1980, Lelong and former French tennis player Jean Lovera came up with the idea of bringing art to the French Open through a partnership between Galerie Lelong & Co. with the French Tennis Federation and the Roland Garros Committee. Each year, a different contemporary artist is chosen to design the official poster for the tournament. Valerio Adami and Eduardo Arroyo were the first two artists chosen. Miró designed the poster in 1991 and Tàpies was chosen in 2000.
Notably, Sabbatino said Lelong’s focus was only on the primary market for his artists. “Once I said to him, ‘you know, Daniel, you know, you’ve sold every great Miró and Calder all over the world. Why don’t we ever try to sell them again?’”
He told Sabbatino, “That’s another career, and that’s not mine.”
Lelong died in hospital after being sick the last few days. While the retired gallerist had been homebound for the last couple of years, Sabbatino said he was still happy. “I spoke to him on his birthday,” she said. “They were singing. He had champagne. He looked on the bright side of everything.”
