THE GALLERY
Suzanne and Pierre Vérité opened the Carrefour gallery, in the Vavin square in Montparnasse, in 1931 on the occasion of the Exposition Coloniale in Paris. Dedicated to the “primitive arts” and archeology, they were pioneers in the study and collection of tribal art. Pierre Vérité, a painter in his own right, lived in La Ruche, passage Dantzig, and counted among his clients several of the most prominent artists of the 20th century, including Picasso, Ernst, Lhote, Breton, and Malraux, to name just a few.
It would be impossible to summarize the life of this iconic place, registered among the historic monuments of Paris' 6th arrondissement, which has operated without interruption for 80 years. In 1996, the Vérité family passed the torch to Stéphane Mangin, who continues to specialize in the tribal arts for which the gallery is justly famous.
Without a doubt, the gallery is the oldest existing destination for collectors of tribal art. There is not a single connoisseur of African art who has not made the pilgrimage “chez Vérité.”
A renowned specialist in African and Oceanic art since 1987, Stéphane Mangin set up shop in the gallery of the legendary Verité family in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris in 1996. Upholding the tradition of eclecticism and quality of this mythic place, rechristened “Galerie Kanaga,” he presents a vast collection of masks, sculptures and architectural objects from New Guinea, Asia, Africa and the Americas.
An accredited expert by the Conseil des Ventes Volontaires (C.V.V.) of France, Mangin has organized many auctions of tribal art, at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris as well as in the French provinces, and continues to mount regular public exhibitions and sales.
He is the author of several studies on antique ethnographic postcards as well as the traditional masks of Nepal, and has written exhibition catalogues on such retrospectives as the “Couples et Janus” show presented in December 2004.