Ambroise Vollard, (born 1865, Saint-Denis, Réunion—died July 21, 1939, Versailles, France), French artwork supplier and writer who within the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries championed the then avant-garde works of such artists as Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso.
Vollard deserted the research of regulation to work as a clerk for an artwork supplier. He opened his personal gallery in Paris in 1893 and defied public style two years later with the primary one-man exhibition of the work of Cézanne. A second Cézanne exhibition in 1898 was adopted by the primary one-man exhibits of the work of Picasso (1901) and Matisse (1904), whereas such artists as Maurice de Vlaminck, Georges Rouault, and Pierre Bonnard additionally obtained Vollard’s help and the advantages of his salesmanship. Vollard shrewdly acquired masterpieces—and generally the total contents of studios—from these nearly unknown artists at cut price costs.
About 1905 Vollard’s curiosity additionally turned to artwork publishing, and he sponsored the publication of many literary works beautifully illustrated by Edgar Degas, Picasso, and different painters, in addition to editions of unique prints and different graphic works by them. Several avant-garde artists, together with Cézanne and Picasso, reciprocated Vollard’s early appreciation of their work by portray or drawing his portrait. His autobiography, Recollections of a Picture Dealer, was printed in 1937.