Carré, Louis (1897 -1977)
Titles
Mr.
Description
Louis Carré took over his father’s business as an antiques dealer in 1923 in Rennes, then moved to Paris. He specialised in ethnography and ‘primitive’ art in the 1930s and later in contemporary art. Roland Balaÿ (from the M. Knoedler & Co. gallery) and Carré founded an art gallery in Paris in 1937. Carré took over and directed it on his own from 1941. In 1930, he began to work with the art... Read more
Louis Carré took over his father’s business as an antiques dealer in 1923 in Rennes, then moved to Paris. He specialised in ethnography and ‘primitive’ art in the 1930s and later in contemporary art. Roland Balaÿ (from the M. Knoedler & Co. gallery) and Carré founded an art gallery in Paris in 1937. Carré took over and directed it on his own from 1941.
In 1930, he began to work with the art dealer Charles Ratton, with whom he organised sales and exhibitions. As part of their collaboration as the ‘Carré-Ratton firm’, they bought objects using common funds. When the firm dissolved, the objects they had not sold were shared between them.
Among the pieces from this collection were a great number of objects from the Kingdom of Benin which Carré qualifies as ‘the finest collection ever known’. Carré had pieces purchased at the 1930 Fosters sale of George William Neville’s collection, objects Neville had looted in Benin City in 1897. Carré’s collection was exhibited at M. Knoedler & Co. in November 1935: ‘Bronzes and Ivories from the Old Kingdom of Benin (...)’ (Bodenstein, 2018, 278-283).
Pieces from the Carré collection of Benin art were sold to private collectors as well as institutions in Europe and the United States. Some of them can be found today in the Musée du quai Branly, Paris, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Fleming Museum of Art, University of Vermont, Fog Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) and Cleveland Museum of Art (Aghora database website).
Roles
DealerPlaces of contact
Paris, FR; New York, USExternal biography links
Edo designations
English designations
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Provenance names
25 objects
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