French gallerist Daniel Lelong has died at the age of ninety-two. A lawyer by training, Lelong first became involved in the artworld after being invited by French art dealer Aimé Maeght to assist with the legal formation of France’s first contemporary art foundation and museum, which opened in 1964. He left his career at the Conseil d’Etat in Paris to join Galerie Maeght in 1961, working on exhibitions with artists including Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, Eduardo Chillida, Antoni Tàpies and Francis Bacon.
After Maeght’s death in 1981, Lelong cofounded Galerie Maeght-Lelong in Paris with Jacques Dupin and Jean Frémon. Renamed Galerie Lelong & Co in 1987, the gallery also oversaw additional branches in New York and Zurich. The gallery’s exhibitions included artists such as Louise Bourgeois (who staged her first exhibition in Europe at the gallery in 1985), Jannis Kounellis, Pierre Alechinsky, Gunther Förg and Kiki Smith.
Lelong later served on the board of the Calder Foundation and sold multiple works by Calder to collectors including Joseph H. Hirshhorn, many of which are on display at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.
Lelong was also responsible for initiating a partnership between the French Tennis Federation and Galerie Lelong, for which a contemporary artist is chosen each year to design the official poster for the French Open tournament, leading to artists including Miró and Tàpies taking on the task.
