(b Mannheim, June 25, 1884; d Paris, Jan 11, 1979).
German art dealer, publisher, and writer, active in France. In 1902 he left the Jewish community of Mannheim for Paris, where he assiduously visited museums, galleries, and salons, while training for a career as a banker or stockbroker. In spring 1907 he obtained sufficient funds from his family to launch the tiny Galerie Kahnweiler at 28, Rue Vignon. That year he purchased works at the Salon des Indépendants and at the Salon d’Automne (by Kees van Dongen, Matisse, Derain, and Braque), and in the same year he met Picasso and visited his studio in the Bateau-Lavoir. There he saw the recently completed Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907; New York, MOMA). The visit was decisive. Kahnweiler immediately supported Picasso and also Braque, whose exhibition of November 1908, one of Kahnweiler’s rare one-man shows before World War I, prompted the coining of the term Cubism. Kahnweiler proved instrumental in promoting the style, numbering among his few faithful clients ...
