Barbara Gladstone, Influential New York Art Dealer, Dies at 89

Barbara Gladstone, one of today’s most influential art dealers, died on Sunday in Paris, after “a brief illness,” her gallery’s partners said in an email. She was 89.

Gladstone started her gallery in 1980 in a New York space that was “the size of a shoebox” with a monthly rent of $700, she told the Wall Street Journal in rare 2011 interview. Today, it operates out of two cavernous locations in the city’s West Chelsea neighborhood, townhouses on the Upper East Side and in Brussels, a deconsecrated church in Rome, and a multi-floor shop in Seoul’s Gangnam district.

More than 70 artists and estates are on Gladstone Gallery’s roster, including leading figures like Thomas Bayrle, Sarah Lucas, Thomas Hirshhorn, Wangechi Muti, Matthew Barney, and Rosemarie Trockel, and closely watched artists who are earlier in their careers, like Ed Atkins, Ian Cheng, and Rachel Rose. Foundations or estates for canonical deceased artists like Keith Haring, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Salvo are among those represented by the gallery.

In an era that saw the rise of mega galleries, with ambitious dealers opening branches in cities around the world, Gladstone took a slower and steadier approach. She added her second Manhattan gallery only in 2008, the same year she opened in Belgium. In 2020, amid the pandemic, she brought aboard the maverick dealer Gavin Brown as partner, when he closed his gallery, and added his outpost in the Italian capital. Her South Korean presence was inaugurated in 2022.

“Barbara was a visionary leader who had an indelible impact on the artists she worked with, her colleagues at the gallery, her many friends, and the entire art world,” the four partners, Max Falkenstein, Caroline Luce, Paula Tsai, and Brown said in an email.

“Though many of us expected Barbara to live forever, she has been preparing for this day and set her leadership transition plans in motion in 2016, when Max became a co-owner of the gallery,” the letter goes on. “Barbara’s four partners will continue in their roles in leading the gallery, with Max spearheading the leadership team, Gavin leading artists relations and development, Caroline overseeing the gallery’s operations and HR, and Paula continuing to lead Asia and oversight of gallery communications.”

This post will be updated.

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