Conversation & Book Event
“Pow! Right in the Eye!” with Lynn Gumpert and Madeline Warren
In conjunction with the exhibition Make Way for Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde
October 1, 2024–March 1, 2025
Hauser & Wirth Southampton is pleased to invite you to join us for a special book event celebrating the recently released memoir Pow! Right in the Eye! by provocative Parisian art dealer Berthe Weill, now available in English for the first time.
The event will feature a conversation between the book’s editor and director of NYU’s Grey Art Gallery, Lynn Gumpert, and Senior Director at Hauser & Wirth Southampton, Madeline Warren. Copies of the book, published by The University of Chicago Press, will be available for purchase during the event.
This event is free and registration is required.
About the Book:
Berthe Weill, a formidable Parisian dealer, was born into a Jewish family of very modest means. One of the first female gallerists in the business, she first opened the Galerie B. Weill in the heart of Paris’s art gallery district in 1901, holding innumerable exhibitions over nearly forty years. Written out of art history for decades, Weill has only recently regained the recognition she deserves.
Under five feet tall and bespectacled, Weill was beloved by the artists she supported, and she rejected the exploitative business practices common among art dealers. Despite being a self-proclaimed “terrible businesswoman,” Weill kept her gallery open for four decades, defying the rising tide of antisemitism before Germany’s occupation of France. By the time of her death in 1951, Weill had promoted more than three hundred artists—including Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Diego Rivera, and Suzanne Valadon—many of whom were women and nearly all young and unknown when she first exhibited them.
Pow! Right in the Eye! makes Weill’s provocative 1933 memoir finally available to English readers, offering rare insights into the Parisian avant-garde and a lively inside account of the development of the modern art market.
Health and Safety:
Proof of vaccination is required.