Aimé Maeght

Aimé Maeght (1906–1981)was a French art dealer, collector, lithographer, and publisher and became one of the most influential art dealers in postwar France. His gallery represented major artists such as Joan Miró, Georges Braque, Alberto Giacometti, MarRiopellel, and Fernand Léger, and maintained an important publishing program through the art review Derrière le miroir, which accompanied many of the gallery’s exhibitions.

Maeght played an important role in the early Paris career of Ellsworth Kelly. The first significant collaboration between Ellsworth Kelly and Galerie Maeght took place in October 1951, when Kelly participated in the group exhibition Tendance, together with Jacques Germain, Pablo Palazuelo, Pierre Pallut, and Serge Poliakoff. Tendance was organised by Louis Clayeux, whom Kelly had met through Eduardo Paolozzi earlier in 1951 and with whom he developed an intimate and close personal relationship. Through these two exhibitions Kelly developed closer ties with the Maeght family, spending Christmas 1951 with them at the Colombe d’Or in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, where they were joined by Louis Clayeux and Gustav Zumsteg. Kelly’s first solo exhibition at the Galerie Maeght was realised by Clayeux in 1958, four years after the artist’s return to the Unites States. It was also the first time Kelly collaborated on an issue of Derrière le miroir. Between 1964 and 1965 Kelly conceived two inaugural self-contained lithographic bodies of work in collaboration with Atelier Maeght, identified in Axsom’s 1987 Catalogue Raisonné as the Suite of Twenty-Seven Color Lithographs (1964) and the Suite of Plant Lithographs (1965). To execute these, Kelly travelled back to France and worked directly with Marcel Durassier. The trip coincided with his second solo exhibition at the gallery and his second solo contribution to Derrière le miroir.

Joan Mitchell was also close to the Maeght family, yet mainly through her partner Jean-Paul Riopelle, who was represented by Maeght.