Author:

Keywords:

Cubism, Monographic Exhibition, Art Historiography, Fernand Léger, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Arts & Humanities, Art, History

Abstract:

In 1933 the Kunsthalle in Basel staged Georges Braque’s first retrospective, while the Kunsthaus in Zurich honoured Juan Gris and then Fernand Léger. This chapter examines the art-historical claims these three shows staked, individually and collectively, and traces the different parties that converged—collided—in their realisation: the artists, the visible beneficiaries of events; the dealers and international collectors, who lent works and were invested in the artists’ success; the museum curators, who nurtured ambitions for their institutions; and the art critics, Carl Einstein and Christian Zervos, who left their interpretive marks upon the displays and the stories they told.