\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"Someone](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Screenshot-2025-05-29-at-10.35.36.png\")
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\n\tJean Fremon, the gallery\u2019s CEO and remaining original partner, told ARTnews in an email, \u201cWhat can I say? Daniel and I have been business partners for the last 50 years. Anyone who knew Daniel would remember him as a warm and positive person.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFremon noted that Lelong had stepped back from daily work at his namesake gallery in the last 15 years but the two men kept a close relationship \u201cuntil these last days\u201d.<\/p>\n
\n\tBorn in 1933 in Nancy, France, Lelong studied law and worked as a civil servant at the Conseil d\u2019\u00c9tat. Then-influential French art dealer, collector and publisher Aim\u00e9 Maeght invited Lelong to draft the statutes of what would become the first contemporary art foundation and museum: the Marguerite and Aim\u00e9 Maeght Foundation.<\/p>\n
\n\tLelong called the experience \u201ca thrilling adventure\u201d. \u201cThere was no model for such status: no contemporary art or modern art foundation existed in France, back then,\u201d he told Flash Art in 2014<\/a>. <\/p>\n \n\tThe foundation opened in 1964, and Lelong asked to be placed on leave from his job, during which he started working full-time at the Galerie Maeght. <\/p>\n \n\tAt the gallery, Lelong was assigned administration tasks like transportation, insurance, and financial matters. He also worked on exhibitions for many artists who would become modernist icons: Joan Mir\u00f3<\/a>, Alexander Calder<\/a>, Marc Chagall<\/a>, Alberto Giacometti<\/a>, Antoni T\u00e0pies, Francis Bacon and Eduardo Chillida.<\/p>\n \n\tIn 1981, Maeght died, and Lelong become the director of Galerie Maeght-Lelong alongside Jean Fr\u00e9mon and Jacques Dupin. It became Galerie Lelong & Co. in 1987. They opened a location in New York in 1985.\u00a0There was also a location in Zurich. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHe was an art dealer from a different time, right?,\u201d Sabbatino said. \u201cHe showed at the first Art Basel in [1970]. So much of the history of the, I would say, the mid 20th century from the 60s onward, which is lost to a lot of people, right? Because\u00a0 the people who lived through that, who are alive, are very few.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHe really loved life. He was very positive person. He always looked on the bright side. He he really liked artists. He liked people. This seems like a minor characteristic, but actually it infiltrated, every way he ran the gallery. He was really interested in people, and he enjoyed them, and he enjoyed selling. He had this little book where he kept all his sales going back to the \u201960s.<\/p>\n \n\tThroughout his career, Lelong continued to develop deep relationships with artists such as Jaume Plensa, Jannis Kounellis and Sean Scully. \u201cPierre Alechinsky, is like, the same age as Daniel and his, his whole career has been at the gallery,\u201d Sabbatino said.<\/p>\n \n\tLelong also built sold many works to major collectors like Norman Braman, Joseph H. Hirshhorn and Jon Shirley. \u201cThe Braman\u2019s house in Florida, all those Calders, all those Mir\u00f3s, came from his long friendship with Daniel,\u201d Sabbatino said. \u201cHe always would say, \u2018Joe Hirshhorn would come to the gallery and he\u2019d buy the whole show.\u2019 Many works in the Hirshhorn [Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC] came from Galerie Lelong, or a number of them, of certain artists.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHe was very instrumental in building many collections.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tLelong also wrote and published books, including one on Calder and several volumes of Mir\u00f3\u2019s catalogue raisonn\u00e9\u00a0co-authored by his daughter Ariane Lelong-Mainaud. <\/p>\n \n\tOutside of the gallery, Lelong\u2019s other interests included a love for music, and singing. \u201cHe gave concerts,\u201d Sabbatino said with a big laugh. \u201cI remember my first L\u00e9o Ferr\u00e9 survey album came from him as a gift. [He] was a friend of his.\u201d<\/p>\n