Joseph Brummer (1883 – 14 April 1947) was a Hungarian-born art dealer and collector who exhibited both antique artifacts from different cultures, early European art, and the works of modern painters and sculptors in his galleries in Paris and New York. In 1906 he and his two brothers opened their first gallery in Paris, the Brummer Gallery. At the start of World War I, they closed the gallery and moved to New York City. Joseph alone opened his next gallery in 1921 in Manhattan.
Biography
Joseph (originally József) Brummer was born in Sombor, then in Hungary (now Serbia), in 1883. He studied applied arts in Szeged from 1897 on, and continued these studies in Budapest from 1899 on. Afterward, he studied at Munich before starting on his own as an artist in Budapest and Szeged.
Together with his brothers Ernest (1891-1964) and Imre (died 1928), he moved to Paris in 1905. In 1906, Brummer and his brothers opened the Brummer Gallery in Paris at the Boulevard Raspail, where they sold African art, Japanese prints and pre-Columbian, mainly Peruvian art, alongside contemporary paintings and sculptures.[1]
In 1911, Brummer married the Swedish ceramist and painter Beata Mårtensson.[3]
At the start of World War I, Joseph Brummer closed in Paris and moved to New York City. In 1921 he reopened a gallery at 43 East Fifty-Seventh Street in Manhattan. He specialized in medieval and Renaissance European art, and Classical, Ancient Egyptian, African, and pre-Columbian objects, but also hosted some of the earliest exhibitions of modern European art in the United States. It stayed in business until 1949, two years after Joseph's death.[4]
A major part of his private art collection was bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1947.[5] A second part of the Joseph Brummer art collection, still over 2400 lots, was sold in 1949 by Parke-Bernet Galleries.
The final part, 600 pieces that remained in the family, were eventually inherited by Ernest Brummer's widow, Ella Bache Brummer. They were sold in Zurich in October 1979. Their value was estimated at $10 million.[6]
From 1931 until 1948, Brummer had owned the Guennol Lioness; in 2007 it was the most expensive sculpture ever sold at auction.[7][8]
In 1909 Brummer had his portrait painted by Henri Rousseau.[9] and by Anne Goldthwaite in 1915.[10] In 1993, the Rousseau portrait was sold by Christie's for £2,971,500 ($4,421,592).[11] It is currently owned by the National Gallery.
Gallery
The New York branch of the Brummer Gallery was opened in 1914 by Imre and Joseph Brummer. Joseph and his brothers Ernest were among the most significant art dealers of the first half of the 20th century, dealing in a broad range of art that spanned from classical antiquity to modern art.[12] Their collection included many works from the Middle Ages, Pre-Columbian America, and Renaissance and Baroque decorative arts.[13] Following Joseph Brummer's death in 1947, the gallery closed down in 1949, and its collection was auctioned off over the next three decades.[12]
Exhibitions
This is an incomplete list of the exhibitions of modern art in the Brummer Gallery in New York.
1932, 13 December to ?: 18th century French drawings, from the Richard Owen collection
1933, 3 January to 28 February: Aristide Maillol (second exhibition at Brummer)
1933, 4 March to 15 April: Pierre Roy (second exhibition at Brummer)
1933, October to November: 18th and 19th century French drawings from the Richard Owen collection (second part), including works by Antoine Watteau, Gustave Moreau and Théophile Steinlen
1933, 17 November to 1934, 13 January: Sculptures by Constantin Brâncuși (second exhibition at Brummer).[16]
