André-François Petit: A Passion for Surrealism

The apple does not fall far from the tree. Gallerist André-François Petit’s son was a collector. Stéphane Petit lived surrounded, if not invaded, by sculptures, works on paper and paintings hanging up to the ceiling in his modernist apartment in Neuilly. The inventory after his untimely death revealed many treasures, from two masterful paintings by Leonora Carrington to drawings by Bellmer, Brauner, Dalí and Tanguy that he inherited from his father, André-François Petit, one of the foremost Surrealist art dealers. What foresight! An Itinerary The son of Auvergnat bougnats —coal merchants who also ran a small cafe—André-François Petit was born 1924 at Felletin in the Creuse. He studied law to please his father. “As soon as I graduate,” he told himself, “I’ll live my life!” He kept his word. In the 1950s he started the Carpentier-Petit Gallery at 122 boulevard Haussmann in Paris. “Never have a partner,” he advised his daughter Bénédicte. “There’s always one who works and the other who sleeps.” He and Carpentier parted ways. Abstract art was all the rage at the time. Petit represented Lagrange and Lapicque, but abstraction bored him. His passion…