“We were looking for a space that suited us” highlights Diane Lahumière to explain that the Parisian gallery is leaving its spaces near the Picasso Museum to settle a few steps away at 70 rue des Tournelles. She specifies that if the configuration of the premises was useful for her parents who created the gallery and lived above, it is not suitable for the circulation of works.
After looking for a space to rent, Diane and her brother Frédéric finally decided to transform a premises he owned 400m away, which served as reserves and a workshop. Major work had to be done, particularly for the glass roof to be changed as well as for adaptation to public reception standards. In the end, the new spaces have more lengths of walls than Rue du Parc Royal, which makes it possible to exhibit around thirty paintings instead of around twenty previously. The gallery also gains more direct access to the street, which was not the case before, leading to a flow of spontaneous visitors.
The gallery opened last week but the inauguration will take place on March 7 with an exhibition “tribute” to, his parents and the artists of the gallery which specialized in constructed and geometric abstraction. Jean-Claude and Anne Lahumière created the gallery in Paris in 1963 on rue d’Aguesseau before moving to boulevard de Courcelles where they remained for 30 years before moving to rue du Parc Royal. They died in 2014 and 2017, leading to a complex and expensive estate settlement that also prompted the move.
This is also one of the reasons which explains the departure of the Jeanne Bucher Jaeger Gallery from its historic location (in the 1960s) on rue de Seine last April. Created in 1925 by Jeanne Bucher, the gallery was taken over in 1947 by her great-nephew Jean-François Jaeger, joined in 2003 by her children Frédéric and Véronique. In 2008, they opened a new space on rue Saintonge in the Marais which became the gallery’s only space. The disappearance in 2021 of Jean-François Jaeger and then of his wife reshuffled the gallery cards between the five brothers and sisters. Today Véronique Jaeger is president. She also explains that the premises on rue de Seine were no longer suitable.
