Maine Durieu Pierre Langlois 154 Augustins, on the fringes of the tribal art neighborhood of Paris. You shared your unique and wonderful personality and taste with many collectors there for many years, and they delighted in your fi nds. In 2005, you brought the Gan and their art to light with a sublime exhibition entitled La Spirale du Serpent (The Spiral of the Serpent). You were part of that group of dealers who pass things on, whether knowledge, dreams, or emotions. Rue Visconti, your last professional address, was the scene of many wonderful shows, including Au Fil de l’Eau (Along the Water), Salon de Beauté (Beauty Salon), Presque Rien (Almost Nothing), and Sacrés Baoulé (Sacred Baule). Good-bye, my lovely lady from Marseilles. May the hills of Vercors, at whose feet you now rest, protect you forever. Serge Le Guennan Maine, you left us so suddenly, on tiptoes, almost without warning. A devastated, deeply moved, and contemplative crowd gathered the other day at the Church of Saint Roch, to say farewell at your fi nal departure. You began your travels in the 1960s, with trips fi rst to Niger, then to Zaire, and fi nally to Côte d’Ivoire. You began your career as a dealer in Abidjan. You found a path among the Lobi that resonated with you, one that took you off the beaten path of African sculpture as defi ned by Western tastes. You wrote of their statuary: “Lobi sculpture is above a sculptural truth. It is not an aestheticized art —man is always present with his faults and his deformations, but he is always gazing into the distance and his demeanor is infi nitely dignifi ed.” I wonder if your aunt, Germaine Richier, somehow infl uenced you with her philosophy of sculpture. In the 1980s in Paris, you opened a gallery on the Quai des Grands Pierre Langlois has died. He left as he had hoped to, discretely and quietly. His departure marks the end of the era of tribal art dealers who collected in situ and returned with pieces to offer. Born in Lille in 1927, Langlois didn’t care for school , and the Second World War made life diffi cult. He joined the army, which sent him to Indochina, where the situation was relatively calm. When he returned to France, he worked for a while with his father, a sales representative in the liquor industry, and concurrently began to associate with young people interested in art: Evrard the book dealer, Dodeigne the sculptor, and Leroy the painter. These relationships opened new horizons to him. One of these friends spoke to him of a remarkable book about the Dogon of Mali, Dieu d’Eau (God of Water), by Marcel Griaule, the head of the Dakar-Djibouti Expedition. Pierre’s interest was piqued, and he boarded a ship for Abidjan, from where he traveled by truck to the Dogon area. He quickly established friendly relations with young people there, who took him to the cliffs where there were tombs replete with sculptures. Upon his return, his friend Evrard pushed for organizing an exhibition and a catalog. Evrard sold the collection Langlois had put together to a collector and the works were exhibited at La Hune in November of 1954. Now equipped with a better understanding of the art market and having become interested in early travel accounts, Langlois decided to make more collecting expeditions. He departed for the New Hebrides, where he collected magnifi cent fern-root ancestor fi gures. It was around then that Henri Kamer and I fi rst heard of him. We met in Lille, and then in Paris, having purchased his most beautiful fi gures. These pieces were sent to New York, where we were established, and were quickly acquired by Robert Goldwater, then the director of the Rockefeller Museum, and by Douglas Newton, his advisor for Oceanic art. Pierre then made a quick exploratory trip to Mexico and then asked us to come with him on a second trip to participate in buying. I joined him and we made many acquisitions. I returned to New York, while Pierre went on to Paris, having made the acquaintance of Denise, the young lady who would later become his wife. They joined us in Cannes for some boating adventures in San Remo, which were wonderful vacations. Our business together was successful, and after the landmark Helena Rubinstein sale in New York, Pierre and Denise moved in with us. Shortly thereafter, they had a son. I thought that Henri, Langlois, and I should open a gallery in Paris, and we did just that on October 11, 1966. Pierre had brought back magnifi cent posts from the Solomon Islands, and they were very successfully shown at the inaugural exhibition of Galerie Kamer earlier that year in New York. He next set his sights on Madagascar, where he found some wonderful statues. Around the time of my divorce from Henri, Pierre and Denise began IN tribute
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