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Office · Saint-Germain-des-Prés (6th) · 6e arrondissement

Galerie Cahiers d'Art, 14 rue du Dragon

The buildingStill standing
Getting inWalk straight in
What's there nowStill the same

Cahiers d'Art was relaunched in 2012 and again operates a public gallery and publishing house at 14–15 rue du Dragon. Exhibitions change; check the current programme before visiting.

Christian Zervos's hybrid of art magazine, publishing house and gallery on the rue du Dragon, where Kandinsky showed watercolours in 1935 — and where the Picasso catalogue raisonné was compiled.

Address
14 rue du Dragon, 75006 Paris
Years
Founded here in 1926; relaunched in 2012 and again operating at 14–15 rue du Dragon
IllustrationBright present-day view of the dark Cahiers d'Art storefront beneath pale stone arches

A close color reconstruction of the documented façade; all passersby are newly generated.

Editorial illustration

The place, briefly

Christian Zervos ran Cahiers d'Art as three things at once: a review, a publisher and an exhibition space. In a period when the commercial trade was nervous about abstraction, that combination mattered — a painter could be written about, published and hung by the same person in the same building.

Wassily Kandinsky was one of the beneficiaries. Zervos championed him after his arrival from Germany, and in June 1935 gave him a solo showing of recent watercolours here, at a point when very few Paris dealers were interested in what he was doing.

Zervos's other monument is the Picasso catalogue raisonné, thirty-three volumes compiled over decades and still the standard reference, known simply as 'the Zervos'.

The building stands on a narrow street off the boulevard Saint-Germain. Cahiers d'Art was relaunched in 2012 and now again runs exhibitions and publishing from 14–15 rue du Dragon.

Key facts

Who ran it
Christian Zervos
What it was
Magazine, publishing house and gallery in one
Kandinsky
Solo exhibition of new watercolours, June 1935
Also produced here
The Zervos catalogue raisonné of Picasso
Access
Public gallery and publisher; check the current exhibition programme

In images

Cahiers d'Art at its historic address today, again operating as a gallery and publisher.Editorial illustration
A close color reconstruction of the documented façade; all passersby are newly generated.Editorial illustration
Historically informed reconstruction of the gallery and publishing-house entrance in June 1935.Artistic reconstruction
The surviving building geometry in natural color; exact storefront finish, people and activity are interpretive.Artistic reconstruction
A present-day public gallery reconstruction; every wall piece and object is newly invented rather than copied from an exhibition.Editorial illustration
The publishing side of Cahiers d'Art, visualized with unbranded books and newly generated visitors.Editorial illustration
An editorial-workspace reconstruction joining the site's gallery and publishing functions.Editorial illustration

Timeline

  1. 1935

    Kandinsky shows recent watercolours at Cahiers d'Art in June.

On the map

Questions before you go

What was Cahiers d'Art?

Christian Zervos's art review, which also functioned as a publishing house and a gallery. It supported abstraction when the commercial trade would not.

Who was Christian Zervos?

A Greek-French critic and publisher, best known for the thirty-three-volume Picasso catalogue raisonné and for backing Kandinsky in the 1930s.

Writers who knew this place

Illustrated portrait of Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky

Russian-born; French from 1939 · Russian painter, celebrated as a pioneer of abstract art, who gave up a Moscow law career at thirty to study painting in Munich, co-founded the Blue Rider group in 1911, taught for eleven years at the Bauhaus, the German design school — and spent his last eleven years in a flat in Neuilly-sur-Seine that the French artist Marcel Duchamp had pointed him towards, painting soft cell-like forms nothing like the hard geometry Germany knew him for.

Exhibited here · 1935

Christian Zervos gave Kandinsky a solo showing of recent watercolours at Cahiers d'Art in June 1935, at a point when few Paris dealers were interested in abstraction.

— Galerie Cahiers d'Art

Within walking distance

Colour photorealistic view of 173 boulevard Saint-Germain beneath a bright blue sky

Apartment · Saint-Germain-des-Prés (6th)

173 boulevard Saint-Germain

Where Djuna Barnes lived with the sculptor and silverpoint artist Thelma Wood during the 1920s — the relationship that Nightwood was written out of.

Visit the place
The same terrace in colour, the awning cream and green, glasses of beer on the tables in afternoon sun

Bar · Saint-Germain-des-Prés

La Reine Blanche

The cheap bar across the boulevard from the Café de Flore where James Baldwin drank through his first Paris years, and where he met Lucien Happersberger in 1949.

Visit the place
Brasserie Lipp today, red awning lit at dusk with the neon LIPP sign above the door

Restaurant · Saint-Germain-des-Prés

Brasserie Lipp

Beer, potato salad, and choucroute after a day's work. Ernest Hemingway considered it one of the best places in Paris.

Visit the place
The Café de Flore today, white awning and red seats behind the terrace planters

Café · Saint-Germain-des-Prés

Café de Flore

A few doors from Les Deux Magots and part of the same Left Bank circuit. Later became more associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

Visit the place
References

References

The sources below include histories, archival materials, scholarly research, and official records that informed this page. They document Galerie Cahiers d'Art, 14 rue du Dragon, the people connected to it, and its place in Paris.

  1. 1Galerie Cahiers d'Art

    Website
    Comité Professionnel des Galeries d'Art
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Galerie Cahiers d'Art, 14 rue du Dragon page.

    View source

  2. 2Where Did Kandinsky Live?

    Website
    Centre Pompidou, via Google Arts & Culture
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Galerie Cahiers d'Art, 14 rue du Dragon page.

    View source

  1. 3Kandinsky — dossier pédagogique (exhibition education dossier)

    Website
    Centre Pompidou, service éducatif, 2009
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Galerie Cahiers d'Art, 14 rue du Dragon page.

    View source

  2. 4Vasily Kandinsky — artist biography

    Website
    Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Galerie Cahiers d'Art, 14 rue du Dragon page.

    View source
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Why these sources are here

These references provide the documented foundation for this page's history and context. Claim-level citations remain attached to the specific claims they support.

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