Lynn Gumpert Presents Pow! Right in the Eye!

Guests over the age of five must wear masks and show proof of vaccination (either a vaccine card or an Excelsior Pass).

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.

Lynn Gumpert has been Director of the Grey Art Gallery, New York University’s fine arts museum, since 1997. Among the more than seventy exhibitions she has overseen at the Grey are Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby W**d Grey Collection (2019); The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal (2018); Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965 (2017); Global/Local 1960–2015: Six Artists from Iran (2016); Tseng Kwong Chi: Performing for the Camera (2015); The Poetics of Cloth: African Textiles / Recent Art (2008); The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984 (2006); and Mapping Sitting: On Portraiture and Photography, A Project by Walid Raad and Akram Zaatari (2005). She previously worked as a writer, consultant, and independent curator, organizing shows in New York, Japan, and France. From 1980 to 1988 she was curator and senior curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. She authored the first major monograph on French artist Christian Boltanski (Flammarion, 1992) and has contributed essays to numerous publications. In June 1999 Ms. Gumpert was honored by the French government with the distinction of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.

Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn is a curator, art advisor, gallerist, and activist who believes art is a catalyst for social change. With a career rooted in practicality, art history, and passion, Greenberg Rohatyn has garnered international acclaim for her keen eye and instinctual ability to identify and celebrate the rare artistic talents that push culture to new and interesting places. Prior to founding LGDR, Greenberg Rohatyn established Salon 94, the now iconic project space and gallery. She has championed a diverse range of artists from Huma Bhabha, Niki de Saint Phalle, Ibrahim El Salahi, Katy Grannan, Magdalene Odundo, Richard Prince, and more. In 2017, she founded Salon 94 Design, breaking hierarchies between design and high art showing radical designers Gaetano Pesce, Max Lamb, Jae Say Jung Oh and more. More recently, Greenberg Rohatyn has renovated a historic building at 3 East 89th Street that will serve as headquarters for LGDR, a collaborative platform for new dialogues between artists, writers, and collectors. In addition, she has advised major international figures on refining their private collections, and sits on the boards of White Columns and Performa, a non-profit organization dedicated to performance art.

Carlo McCormick is a critic and curator based in NYC.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Rizzoli Bookstore, 1133 Broadway, New York, United States