Galerie Lelong’s original founding by Aimé Maeght in 1945 saw the presentation of modernist icons including Joan Miró, Antoni Tàpies, Francis Bacon and Eduardo Chillida. The gallery adopted its current structure in 1981 with directors Daniel Lelong, Jacques Dupin and Jean Frémon in Paris. This began a period of adding influential artists such as Pierre Alechinsky, Louise Bourgeois, Konrad Klapheck and Jannis Kounellis, among others. The gallery in New York was founded in 1985. Today the gallery continues its history of representing artists at the forefront of the international art world from nearly every continent and all generations including Etel Adnan, David Hockney, Samuel Levi Jones, Nalini Malini, David Nash, Jaume Plensa, Sean Scully, Nancy Spero, and Barthélémy Toguo.
The gallery also works closely with museums and public institutions to support the creation of permanent commissions, monographic and large-scale group exhibitions, and publications by its artists. The gallery has published over 180 exhibition catalogues in the Repères collection, and the catalogue raisonné of the entire work of Joan Miró, in collaboration with the artist’s estate. On the ground floor of the gallery a separate space is dedicated to prints, working closely with the artists on the edition of new works every year.