Reaching for Success: Picasso’s Rise in the Market (The First Two Decades)

This article explores the exhibitions of Picasso’s works in the first two decades of his artistic career, as well as the dealers and collectors who came into contact with them. It describes the relationship between Picasso and his first dealers, Pere Manyach, Berthe Weill, Clovis Sagot, Pere Soulier, Ambroise Vollard, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Georg Caspari, L. W. Guthier, Hans Goltz, Heinrich Thannhauser, Otto Feldmann, Alfred Flechtheim, Emil Richter, Gottfried Tanner, Michael Brenner, R. J. Coady, Leonce Rosenberg, Paul Rosenberg, etc.; as well as his first collectors, Leo and Gertrude Stein, Olivier Sainsere, Joachim Gasquet, Wilhelm Uhde, Herman Rupf, Vincenc Kramař, Frank Stoop, Hugo Perls, Edwin Suermondt, Dr. Paul Ferdinand Schmidt, Princess Mechtilde Lichnowsky, Henry Simms, Ludwig and Rosy Fischer, Professor Wilhelm Kreis, Adolf Erblosch, Justin K. Thannhauser, Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin, Ivan A. Morosov, etc. It also identifies all important Picasso expositions in this time period and how those dealers and collectors were involved in their arrangement. The information provided here has been excerpted from an exhaustive study of the critical literature on Pablo Picasso, as well as from published exhibition catalogues.