Julien Leclercq (poet)

Joseph Louis Julien Leclercq (16 May 1865 – 31 October 1901) was a 19th-century French poet and art critic, devoted to Symbolism. Like his close friend Albert Aurier, he contributed regularly to the Mercure de France, for example in September 1890 an obituary of Vincent van Gogh. In the 1890s, while engaged to the Finnish pianist Fanny Flodin (1868–1954), Leclercq helped to organize exhibitions of contemporary art, the most important touring in 1898 in Scandinavia. Then, in March 1901, he succeeded in bringing together the first important Van Gogh-exhibition exclusively based on loans from French collectors or art dealers, in Paris. It was at this retrospective exhibition — hosted by the Bernheim-Jeune Galleries — that Paul Cassirer was introduced to the work of Van Gogh.

While preparing a similar Van Gogh-exhibition, now with the support of Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Leclercq unexpectedly died, October 31, 1901.