Preceded by an interview with Catherine Grenier, art historian and director of the Giacometti Foundation, more than 1,200 reproductions, 650 documents and critical texts taken from the gallery's archives are brought together in an anniversary book that traces 50 years of activity of the Templon gallery, created in 1966.
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The gallery was founded in 1966 by Daniel Templon, who was then only 21. It first opened rue Bonaparte, in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris, before moving in 1972 to its current location, rue Beaubourg, in the Marais, close to the Pompidou Center, which opened in 1977. Daniel Templon first gained recognition by exhibiting conceptual and minimal artists such as Martin Barré, Christian Boltanski, Donald Judd, Joseph Kosuth, Richard Serra. In the seventies and eighties, Daniel Templon was one of the pioneers of the contemporary art and introduced many important American artists to the French public: Dan Flavin, Ellsworth Kelly, Willem de Kooning, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol. The gallery quickly became one of the references in contemporary art in France. In 1972, Daniel Templon and Catherine Millet co-founded the monthly art magazine ART PRESS.
Over the years, many artists now part of art history have exhibited with the gallery. In chronological order : Martin Barré, Christian Boltanski, Joseph Kosuth, Ben, Arman, César, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland, Robert Morris, Jules Olitski, Frank Stella, Olivier Mosset, Art & Language, Richard Serra, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Karel Appel, Willem de Kooning, Helmut Newton, Francesco Clemente, Jörg Immendorff, Julian Schnabel, Lawrence Weiner, Daniel Buren, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Salle, Robert Mapplethorpe, Robert Rauschenberg, Joel Shapiro, Keith Haring, Peter Halley, James Rosenquist, Robert Longo, Paul Rebeyrolle, Georg Baselitz, Raymond Hains, Eric Fischl, Juan Uslé, Jaume Plensa, George Condo, Ross Bleckner, Chapman brothers, Jim Dine, Richard Long, William Eggleston, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Yayoi Kusama, Richard Deacon, Larry Bell, Guillermo Kuitca, Anthony Caro, Pierre et Gilles.