Paul Rodgers on Simon Hantaï's International Neglect

Art dealer Paul Rodgers recounts his decades-long advocacy for Simon Hantaï, arguing the painter has been misread as a modernist and marginalized internationally. Rodgers first encountered Hantaï's work in 1976 at Galerie Jean Fournier in Paris, after missing the artist's retrospective at the Musée d'Art Moderne. He moved to New York in 1980, puzzled that Hantaï—who engaged with Pollock and later Warhol—was ignored by the American art world. Rodgers attributes this to Clement Greenberg's modernist discourse, which conflated modern art with style, and to Hantaï's 1982 exhibition at Andre Emmerich's gallery, which wrongly associated him with Colorfield painting. Hantaï withdrew from commercial exhibitions after 1983, refusing the market-driven turn of the 1980s. Rodgers notes that even recent shows, like the 2010 exhibition at Paul Kasmin Gallery, continue to label Hantaï as modernist, a label he rejects. He has written an open letter to MoMA urging a retrospective, citing Hantaï's connection to Picasso's folded Guitar sculpture. The Centre Pompidou's current retrospective (through September 2) will not travel.