13 Facts About Ambroise Vollard

Ambroise Vollard was an avid art collector and publisher, especially of print series by leading artists.

Ambroise Vollard's clients included Albert C Barnes, Henry Osborne Havemeyer, Gertrude Stein and her brother, Leo Stein.

In 1890 Ambroise Vollard opened a gallery in Paris, where he exhibited the work of artists such as Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Paul Cezanne and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Ambroise Vollard was especially concerned with promoting the work of marginal artists, artists rejected by the official salons.

Ambroise Vollard was concerned about the quality of the productions, always trying to have the best materials and the best technicians: for lithography he relied especially on Blanchard, for woodcuts on Tony Beltrand and for etchings and engravings on Louis Fort.

Ambroise Vollard always selected the artist, whom he sometimes let select the text he would like to illustrate.

Ambroise Vollard's first edition was Parallelement by Paul Verlaine, illustrated by Pierre Bonnard, which was a commercial failure, as was the next, Daphnis and Chloe, by Bonnard.

The final result did not satisfy Ambroise Vollard who considered it unsaleable; Rouault had to sue his heirs to get the plates, and the series was finally published in 1948.

Between 1936 and 1937 he illustrated Historia natural by Buffon, again commissioned by Ambroise Vollard, a set of thirty-one sugar-lift etchings in a realistic style.

Ambroise Vollard was depicted in numerous portraits in his lifetime, as a result of his relationships with many artists of the period and his influence on their careers.

The first of these was Portrait of Ambroise Vollard painted by Cezanne in 1899.

Ambroise Vollard had often stated his wish to create a museum of French art collected by him in Yugoslavia.

Ambroise Vollard had put him in direct contact with the most prominent artists of the day and often asked him to act as agent for art selling or purchasing purposes.