Recollections of a Picture Dealer

Celebrity, art merchant, socialite, publisher, and writer, Ambroise Vollard (1867–1939) was one of the most extraordinary figures in 20th-century art. He possessed an uncanny ability to recognize genius in painters — dozens of important artists received valuable commissions and gallery space with his help, and his galleries presented the first one-man shows for such luminaries as Matisse, Cézanne, and Picasso. Vollard's warmth, candor, and intelligence earned him the friendship of a generation o