The Best Art Shop in Paris?
In a very average back street in the 9th arrondissment of Paris, stands a humble shop front. Most residents and passers by barely give it a glance or cross its threshold - and it’s most certainly not on the normal tourist route.
Yet, for a short period during the late 19th century, the small building at number 14, Rue Clauzel, held one of the greatest collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art that the art world could ever dream of.
The canvas’s contained within its walls would make the eyes of collectors, curators and dealers worldwide water and their mouths dribble. Yes… dribble. The values contained within would today run into billions of dollars….yet, back then, they were considered virtually worthless.
14, Rue Clauzel, 75009, Paris was the very small art supplies shop of Julien ‘Pere’ Tanguy (1825–1894). ‘Pere Tanguy’, as he affectionately became known amongst his circle of friends and customers, regularly sold canvas and paint supplies to the growing number of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters that congregated at the southern tip of Montmartre during the 1880’s.
Tanguy’s friendship grew with the artists and he would allow them to hang their paintings on the walls of his shop and hold informal exhibitions of their works. His shop became their informal meeting and gathering place. It is fascinating to stand at the entrance today, almost 130 years later, and think of the footsteps that had walked that floor, the conversations that had taken place….and the art that had been displayed.
Perhaps one of Pere Tanguy’s most famous (of today) customers and friends was Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh had moved to Paris in 1886 and lived with his brother Theo, quite close to Tanguy’s shop. Vincent was looking for the ‘friction of ideas’ with other artists and his two years in Paris proved to be crucial to his development as an artist.
One of the most captivating thoughts about old Pere Tanguy’s building, was that In 1889, when Theo moved from Rue Lepic to the apartment at cite Pigalle (where he and Jo van Gogh-Bonger would live together after their wedding), Theo was unable to take Vincent’s paintings with him and therefore rented storage space from Tanguy. The works remained there until Theo’s death in 1890.
Just think… hundreds of Van Gogh paintings were stored in this building!….Today, that “storage unit” would be considered one of the worlds greatest treasure troves of all time…. I cannot walk within half of mile of the Rue Clauzel without paying that building homage.
So, the next time you find yourself wandering up the Rue des Martyres in the 9th…walking up to admire the Moulin Rouge and onto the Sacre Couer…pause for a moment and nip down the Rue Clauzel….stand outside the window of old Pere Tanguy’s shop….gaze at the old stone step on the threshold….for upon and within it, walked some of the greatest names in art history…and stacked and racked in storage, lay one of the greatest collection of Van Gogh paintings ever known….
