Gildo Caputo

Gildo Caputo was born in Paris the June 24th 1904 Italian parents. Wire of painter, originating in Salerno and grandson of editor (his mother Milan ease is the girl of the famous editor Andelo Sommaruga), after studies with the Louis-the-Large college then in the Sorbonne, it accomplishes many voyages in South America. Volunteer in 1939 in the legion garibaldienne of colonel Marabini, it passes in the Foreign legion, takes French nationality, takes part in Resistance in the network " Ronsard" while he writes criticisms in " Comœdia" and the French edition of the Italian newspaper " Tempo".

Become in 1942 director, on the councils of Andre Malraux and Jean Paulhan, of the gallery Rene Drouin (Place Vendôme) whose Myriam Prévot is the collaborator, he exposes to it Kandinsky, Magnelli, Fautrier, Wols, Dubuffet, Mathieu, Fougeron, Gischia, Bissière, Pignon, Tal Coat, Moal, Manessier and Singier. It founds in 1948 gallery Billiet-Caputo (30 Street Boétie) where he continues to expose the young painters and creates with Louis Carré the professional Committee of the art galleries of which he is, succeeding Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, the president lasting eighteen years, then the honorary president.

At the end of 1950 Paul Martin, industrialist of Lyons origin which had created it in 1942, yields the Galerie of France (Rue of the Suburb Saint-Honore) to Myriam Prévot and Gildo Caputo. Presenting the biggest part of the painters of the not figuration and Lyric abstraction, in particular Hans Hartung and Anna-Eva Bergman, Moal, Manessier, Zoran Music, Pinion, Mario Prassinos, Singier, Pierre Soulages, Zao Wou-Ki, they make in the years 1950 and 1960 of the Gallery of France one of the most important Parisian art galleries.

" The Gallery of France was then a true institution, it dominated the international artistic life and had become the obligatory place of exposure of any artist coming from the whole world which sought the dedication of Paris, for some time still capital world of Article international Grands Prix for its artists, exposures overall muséales (the Museum of Modern art, of the Town of Paris had become a true branch of the gallery), waiting lists for the collectionneurs" , writing Jean-Robert Arnaud (" Cimaise" , 1990, p. 7).

Myriam Provost being committed suicide in 1977, Gildo Caputo leaves the Gallery of France in 1981. He dies in 1987.

Testimony

"He and Myriam Prévot wanted to choose by themselves their artists, to preserve only one reduced number of it to be able well to occupy itself some. It was a researcher and it conceived its role like a division with the collectors of its enthusiasm and the confidence which it had in his artists. The Gallery of France was a meeting place before being a place of commerce."

Dined Vierny in Gildo Caputo , " Cimaise" , n° 205, Paris, April-May 1990, p. 101.

Internal bonds

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