Pow! Right in the Eye!

Now published in English for the first time, Weill's fast-paced and punchy account of her gallery's first 25 years of exhibitions is a who's who of emerging artists in early-twentieth century Paris, the collectors who bought their work, and how much they paid. . . .She paints a clear portrait of how modern masters like Metzinger and Matisse, alongside lesser known painters like Emilie Charmy, shook up modern art and modern culture even before there was a market for their work. -- Maggie Taft * Booklist * Pow! Right in the Eye! reveals the visionary trajectory of Berthe Weill's life and work. Incredibly open to taking risks, Weill exhibited many of the twentieth century's greatest artists while they were still early in their careers. This wonderful book is an urgent protest against forgetting this great gallerist and her journey of endless experimentation. -- Hans Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine Galleries, London Berthe Weill changed the course of art history. With her memoir, a fantastically idiosyncratic and idiomatic adventure that is part confession and part invective, she rewrites that hallowed history as a telling corrective that anyone who cares about art, then and now, needs to read. Every twist and turn here reveals far more than simply an in-the-trenches account of the difficulties of presenting the young and new to an indifferent world-it is a stunningly humble self-portrait of the extreme disadvantages faced by an underprivileged Jewish woman confronting the issues of class, anti-Semitism, and sexism, as elegant and sturdy as Picasso's famous portrait of her. -- Carlo McCormick, critic and curator Berthe Weill's compelling memoir is a raucous and often humorous saga of a courageous champion of avant-garde art in Paris during the early twentieth century. The story of the first gallery dedicated to contemporary emerging artists-founded by a woman amidst a market-driven, all male art world-continues to resonate strongly to this day. -- Paula Cooper, Paula Cooper Gallery