Roland Balay, 102, art dealer (Knoedler)
Hyfler/Rosner
Roland Balay, Art Dealer In Modernism, Dies at 102
By WOLFGANG SAXON NY Times
Roland Balay, an international art dealer and former
president of Knoedler & Company, the New York gallery
established in 1846 by his grandfather Michael Knoedler,
died on Thursday at his home on the Upper East Side. He was
102.
His death was announced by the company, from which he
retired in 1976, after 20 years as president. The gallery
helped form many outstanding public and private collections
in the United States throughout the 20th century.
In Mr. Balay's generation, Knoedler, the oldest art gallery
in New York, changed from a showplace for masterpieces to a
home for well-known contemporary artists and prominent
artists' estates. Its survival in a business not known for
longevity has been cited as a testament to its solid taste
and business practices.
Roland Balay was born in Paris, a son of Charles Balay, a
French miniaturist painter, and Amélie Knoedler, Michael's
daughter. Michael Knoedler, a native of Bavaria, had worked
for a Parisian art dealer before immigrating to New York to
open a branch on lower Broadway.
At first Knoedler dealt in frames and sundry supplies; later
it moved uptown, as Pennsylvania petroleum and California
gold generated money for buying major artwork.
Mr. Balay, the last of the Knoedler family to manage the
gallery, first spent a year at its London branch and two or
three in its Paris one. Michael Knoedler, who died in 1878,
had been a champion of home-grown American talent and
promoted it to his clientele both in New York and Europe.
After his European apprenticeship, Mr. Balay joined the New
York gallery in 1922 to work under his uncle Roland
Knoedler, Michael's oldest son, who was then known as the
dean of the New York art world.
By 1930 Mr. Balay had become personally involved in the
transaction in which the Soviet government sold 21 old
masters from the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg,
Russia, to Andrew W. Mellon. A $6.5 million purchase, it was
the cornerstone on which Mellon built the National Gallery
of Art in Washington.
While retaining a stake in the family company, Mr. Balay
left Knoedler shortly after that to set up a partnership
with Louis Carré in Paris to pursue his interest in
modernists like Picasso, Braque and Klee. He served in the
French Army in World War II and was briefly associated with
Georges Keller at the Carstairs Gallery in New York, a
Knoedler offshoot.
Mr. Balay rejoined Knoedler in the mid-1950's, and after the
death of his older cousin Charles Henschel, became president
in 1956. He was a catalyst in the gallery's shift to modern
and contemporary art, thanks partly to his personal
relationships with Picasso, Braque and Léger.
He fostered Knoedler's representation of Barnett Newman and
Willem de Kooning and brought Henry Moore into its stable.
In 1976 he was named president emeritus, five years after
Knoedler was acquired by Armand Hammer, the financier and
collector.
His first marriage, to Marie-Thérèse Maxence, ended in
divorce.
Mr. Balay is survived by his wife of 30 years, Felicie
Trayman Balay; a son and daughter from his earlier marriage,
John Balay of Leek, Staffordshire, England, and Marianne
Blondin-Walter of La Bernerie-en-Retz, France; four
grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
At Knoedler's 150th anniversary in 1996, Mr. Balay reflected
on its past. "Everything is different," he said, "but that's
true of everything else in the world as well. They
represented up-and-coming artists in the 19th century, and
they represent new artists now. The gallery has simply come
full circle."