Art Dealer Berthe Weill’s Contribution to French Art History: A Conversation with Lynn Gumpert and Beth Gersh-Nesic

Event begins at 1pm PT / 2pm MT / 3pm CT / 4pm ET

"Make Way for Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde," currently at the Grey Art Museum, New York University, shines a bright spotlight on an unsung hero who believed in the emerging artists of the early 20th century, even when she earned very little for her efforts. Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Fernand Léger, Diego Rivera, and Raul Dufy are among the best-known artists in this exhibition. However, there are many lesser-known artists among the 110 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures, as well as photographs, catalogues, and other archival material illustrating her life and gallery.  This homage to Berthe Weill (1865-1951) also reintroduces numerous gifted women artists: Suzanne Valaden, Emilie Charmy, Jacqueline Marval, and Hermione David, among many others. A conversation with co-curator Lynn Gumpert, Director of the Grey Art Museum, and art historian Beth Gersh-Nesic, will shed light on Berthe Weill's biography, the artists included in the exhibition, and the fascinating backstory for this show, which took over a decade of dedication from a brilliant team of women arts professionals. The exhibition will be on view at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art from May through September 2025, and then in Paris at the Musée de l'Orangerie, from October 2025 through January 2026. 

Lynn Gumpert

Museum director, curator, administrator, and art historian, Lynn Gumpert has overseen and organized exhibitions on four continents. For more than 25 years, she has served as Director of New York University’s Grey Art Museum, formerly known as the Grey Art Gallery. During her tenure, the Grey has presented over 75 exhibitions. Among them are: Americans in Paris: Artists Working in Post-War France, 1946-1962 (March-July 2024); Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s 1980s (2020); The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal (2018); and The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984 (2006). Gumpert received a BA from the University of California at Berkeley and an MA in art history from the University of Michigan. The French government honored Gumpert with the distinction of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in 1999.

Beth S. Gersh-Nesic

Art historian, Beth Gersh-Nesic is the Director of the New York Arts Exchange, an arts education service, and she is a staff writer with Bonjour Paris, an online arts and culture magazine.  Her books and articles focus on Picasso, the School of Paris, women artists, and the poet/art critic André Salmon, who wrote about several artists on view in the Berthe Weill exhibition at the Grey.  Her translations of Salmon's books include André Salmon on French Modern Art (Cambridge University Press, 2005), and Pablo Picasso, André Salmon and “Young French Painting” (Za Mir Press, 2022). She recently retired from teaching undergraduate and graduate art history courses.

Berthe Weil image credits: * Émilie Charmy, Portrait of Berthe Weill, 1910-1914, in the exhibition “Make Way for Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde.”Credit: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and Alberto Ricci; Photo by MMFA, Julie Ciot