Businesses open and close all the time, and art galleries are no exception. Dealers retire, others close up shop when bankruptcy looms, some die with no succession plan and still others simply decide, for a host of reasons, to exit the scene. In New York, Cheim & Read said its goodbyes in December and Helena Anrather shut its doors in March. The Fortnite Institute ceased operations earlier this week, and Betty Cuningham Gallery in the Lower East Side will end its two-decade run later this year. Yesterday (April 4), the 78-year-old blue-chip Marlborough Gallery, which has spaces in London, New York, Barcelona and Madrid, made headlines when it announced it would be closing in June.
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Art galleries often run on slim margins to begin with, and the pandemic was tough on businesses across the board. Other recent NYC gallery closures: JTT, Foxy Productions, Queer Thoughts and Denny Gallery. London has seen a similar spate of closures as the local market has contracted. It’s not unusual for gallery owners to land on their feet—Jasmin Tsou, founder of JTT, became a director at Lisson Gallery. But for the artists represented by galleries that close and for the patrons who worked closely with said gallery owners to build art collections, the disruption can range from nuisance to traumatic.
Sculptor and installation artist Judy Pfaff could not have guessed that she would be without a New York City gallery for a very long time when legendary art dealer André Emmerich retired in 1997, but she waited seven years before she was brought into the Ameringer|McEnery|Yohe fold in 2004. “A few people talked to some dealers about taking me on, but they didn’t want to touch me,” she told Observer. “Then, it hit me that the........