The Putman Gallery is moving to the third arrondissement of Paris, thus continuing a history relative to the places it inhabits.

Founded in 1974 by Jacques Putman, soon joined by his wife Catherine, this family business has always distinguished itself through the choice of singular and intimist addresses.

After having successively occupied their family apartments on Rue des Grands-Augustins and Rue de Talleyrand, where collectors and dealers are located, the gallery set up on Rue Quincampoix in 2005, in an upper-floor space. Attentive to both transmission and emergence, Éléonore Chatin, her daughter-in-law, who took over from Catherine Putman in 2009, has defended the gallery's historic artists ever since, while also accompanying new generations, with sensitive and rigorous continuity.

The gallery has expanded and now receives its visitors at 230 Rue Saint-Martin, alongside other Parisian galleries of Le Marais, in a space entirely redesigned by an architect and faithful to its identity. For the first time, it opens onto the street level at the ground floor, extending onto a more intimate upper floor. This configuration is designed to accommodate various rhythms of exhibition, to multiply perspectives and foster dialogue between the artworks, notably unique works on paper, but also multiples, in the tradition of publishing contemporary prints that has long been a Putman favourite.

In the age of dematerialisation, the Putman Gallery affirms the importance of a site of contemplation, encounters and discoveries.

The character of the gallery is the result of its history.

In 1974, after handling the operation 'Suites Prisunic'*, Jacques Putman (1926-1994) set up a contemporary art publishing house. He was joined by his wife Catherine Putman (1949-2009) and they published works by Pierre Alechinsky, Max Ernst and Bram van Velde, and then from the 1990s Geneviève Asse, Georg Baselitz, Pierre Buraglio, Tony Cragg, Jean-Pierre Pincemin, Gérard Traquandi, Claude Viallat and others.

For a long time, lovers of contemporary prints or dealers who wished to acquire items published by the Putmans had to go to their apartment in Rue des Grands Augustins. Then in the 1990s the works could be found at the various fairs in which Catherine Putman participated (FIAC, Art Basel, ARCO). After the death of Jacques Putman, she continued their activities at her home in Rue de Talleyrand before finally opening at 40 rue Quincampoix a gallery dedicated exclusively to works on paper, broadening her work to include contemporary drawing and photography.

After her death in 2009, her colleague Éléonore Chatin took over and handled the works that she knows so well, with artists including Max Ernst, Henri Michaux, Jean Tinguely, Tony Cragg and Antonio Saura. She publishes new works, in particular thanks to the artists who form the core of the gallery, thus continuing the broadening to contemporary drawing started by Catherine Putman and placing her own stamp through fresh collaboration and in turn establishing a faithful relationship with the artists.

* Jacques Putman viewed prints and engraving as a way of making contemporary art democratic. Thus in the 1970s he offered the retail chain Prisunic to publish and sell—at 100 francs each—original lithographs by contemporary artists such as Pierre Alechinsky, Arman, Christo, Wifredo Lam, Roberto Matta, Jean Messagier, Pierre Tal Coat, Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle.