Larry Gagosian

Lawrence Gilbert "Larry" Gagosian (born April 19, 1945) is an Armenian American art dealer who owns the Gagosian Gallery chain of art galleries. Working in concert with collectors including Douglas S. Cramer, Eli Broad and Keith Barish he developed a reputation for staging museum quality exhibitions.

Life and career

Gagosian was born in Los Angeles, California, the elder of two siblings, to Armenian parents. His grandparents immigrated from Armenia; he and his parents were born in California.[1] Between 1963 and 1969, he pursued a major in English literature at UCLA.[2] He worked briefly in a record store, a bookstore, a supermarket, and in an entry-level job as Michael Ovitz’s secretary[3] at the William Morris Agency,[4] but got his start in the art business by selling posters near the campus of UCLA in Los Angeles. He closed his poster shop around 1976, when a former restaurant facility became available in the same complex on Westwood's Broxton Avenue,[2] and upgraded to prints by artists like Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander.[4] His gallery Prints on Broxton was renamed the Broxton Gallery when he began to show a wider array of contemporary art.[2] The gallery worked with up-and-coming artists such as Vija Celmins, Alexis Smith, and Elyn Zimmerman, and staged exhibitions such as "Broxton Sequences: Sequential Imagery in Photography", which included the work of John Baldessari and Bruce Nauman.[5]

Television executive Barry Lowen introduced Gagosian to Douglas S. Cramer, who introduced him to his ex-wife, the columnist Joyce Haber, who sold him her California art, which he promptly and profitably resold. In 1978, he opened his first gallery, on La Brea Avenue in West Hollywood, and began showing young Californians (Vija Celmins, Chris Burden) and new New Yorkers (Eric Fischl, Cindy Sherman, Jean-Michel Basquiat). That same year he bought a loft in New York on West Broadway opposite the Leo Castelli Gallery. It was Castelli who introduced Gagosian to Charles Saatchi and Samuel Newhouse Jr.[6] In his first New York appearance, in 1979, he presented David Salle's first exhibition in a loft at 421 West Broadway,[7] in collaboration with dealer Annina Nosei.[2] In 1982, Nosei and Gagosian staged an exhibition of Jean-Michel Basquiat in Los Angeles.[8] Around that time, Basquiat worked from the ground-floor display and studio space Gagosian had built below his Venice home on Market Street.[9][10]

In the early 1980s, Gagosian developed his business rapidly by exploiting the possibilities of reselling works of art by blue-chip modern and contemporary artists, earning the nickname "Go-Go" in the process.[11] After establishing a Manhattan gallery in the mid-1980s, located at the ground-floor space in artist Sandro Chia’s studio building at 521 West 23rd Street,[12] Gagosian began to work with a stable of super collectors including David Geffen, Newhouse, Saatchi, and David Ganek. Bidding on behalf of Newhouse in 1988, Gagosian paid over $17 million for False Start (1959) by Jasper Johns, a then-record price for a work by a living artist. That record was beaten in 2008, when Gagosian paid $23.5 million at Sotheby's in November 2007 for Jeff Koons's Hanging Heart (an artist who happens to belong to the Gagosian gallery's stable).

In 1988, Gagosian bought the Toad Hall estate in Amagansett, New York, with an 11,000-square-foot house[13] designed by architect Charles Gwathmey for fellow architect François de Menil in 1983, for $8 million.[14] In 2009, he had Christian Liaigre design a home for him in Flamands Beach on St. Barths.[15] In 2010, internet pioneer David Bohnett sold his 5,700 square feet Holmby Hills compound, originally designed by A. Quincy Jones for Gary Cooper, to Gagosian for $15.5 million, according to public records.[16] Gagosian bought the former Harkness Mansion, an enormous townhouse at 4 East 75th Street in Manhattan, for $36.5 million[17] in 2011.[3]

In 2011, the British magazine ArtReview placed Gagosian fourth in their annual poll of "most powerful person in the art world".[18] However, many regard him as the most powerful art dealer in the world.[19]

Legal issues

Further information: Girl in Mirror § Lawsuit

In 2003, Gagosian paid $4 million settlement after federal prosecutors accused him and three partners of failing to pay taxes on the sale of 58 works of art.[4]

In 2012 suits and counter-suits were filed by Gagosian and Ronald Perelman against one another concerning an unfinished work by Jeff Koons and 10 others worth up to $45 million.[20][21]

In 2012 Gagosian was sued for $14 million in a suit involving the sale of an edition of Girl in Mirror.[22]

Gagosian Gallery

Main article Gagosian Gallery

References

  1. ↑ Jackie Wullschlager (October 22, 2010), Lunch with the FT: Larry Gagosian Financial Times.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Suzanne Muchnic (October 15, 1995). "Art Smart: Larry Gagosian was regarded as an arriviste in the gallery world of New York. Now, he has returned to open a gallery in Beverly Hills. And still his critics ask: 'How did he do that?'". Los Angeles Times.
  3. 1 2 Eric Konigsberg (January 28, 2013), The Trials of Art Superdealer Larry Gagosian New York Magazine'.
  4. 1 2 3 David Segal (March 7, 2009). "Pulling Art Sales Out of Thinning Air". New York Times.
  5. ↑ Broxton Gallery Pacific Standard Time at the Getty Center.
  6. ↑ Bob Colacello (April 1995), The Art of the Deal Vanity Fair.
  7. ↑ Matt Chaban and Sarah Douglas (August 23, 2011), Larry Gagosian’s Real Estate Wheelings and Dealings New York Observer.
  8. ↑ Rob Sharp (November 2, 2007), Larry Gagosian: The fine art of the deal The Independent.
  9. ↑ Fred Hoffman (March 13, 2005), Basquiat's L.A. - How an '80s interlude became a catalyst for an artist's evolution Los Angeles Times.
  10. ↑ Matt Chaban and Sarah Douglas (August 23, 2011), Larry Gagosian’s Real Estate Wheelings and Dealings New York Observer.
  11. ↑ Higgins, Charlotte (May 10, 2004). "King's Cross a Go-Go as top US art dealer unveils new gallery". The Guardian. Retrieved July 31, 2011.
  12. ↑ Matt Chaban and Sarah Douglas (August 23, 2011), Larry Gagosian’s Real Estate Wheelings and Dealings New York Observer.
  13. ↑ Taylor K. Vecsey (May 21, 2014), Fire Reported at Art Dealer's Amagansett House The East Hampton Star.
  14. ↑ Dan Duray (June 30, 2011), Larry Gagosian’s House Looks Even Better When It’s Not on Fire New York Observer.
  15. ↑ Matt Chaban and Sarah Douglas (August 23, 2011), Larry Gagosian’s Real Estate Wheelings and Dealings New York Observer.
  16. ↑ Lauren Beale (August 24, 2010), David Bohnett sells Holmby Hills estate Los Angeles Times.
  17. ↑ Jennifer Gould Keil (August 17, 2011), Art of the Deal New York Post'.
  18. ↑ "Ai Weiwei is named ArtReview's 'most powerful artist'". BBC News. October 13, 2011. Retrieved October 13, 2011.
  19. ↑ “Art and the Middle East: Qatar’s culture queen”, The Economist, 31 March 2012.
  20. ↑ Patricia Cohen (January 18, 2013), New Blow in Art Clash of Titans, retrieved 2013-06-30
  21. ↑ Aaron Gell (December 18, 2012), "Deconstructing Larry: Defections and Lawsuits Chip Gagosian’s Enamel", New York Observer, retrieved 2013-06-30
  22. ↑ Kennedy, Randy (2012-01-19). "Gagosian Sued for Selling Lichtenstein Painting Without Owner's Consent". The New York Times. Retrieved 2012-05-10.

External links

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