All posts tagged: Gagosian

Heading Into Frieze, Los Angeles Is Poised Between ‘Grief and Hope’

Heading Into Frieze, Los Angeles Is Poised Between ‘Grief and Hope’

Published by José Betancourt

As the art market looks ahead to its next major tentpole event, the 2026 edition of Frieze Los Angeles this week, LA is marking just over one year since devastating wildfires ripped through parts of the city.  “There was really a point where we thought the whole city was going to burn down,” said lifelong Angelena Megan Mulrooney, who opened her eponymous gallery there in 2024, in a phone conversation. “I had two clients whose homes burned to the ground along with their collections,” said adviser Irene Papanestor, who divides her time between New York and LA. “It was such a profound loss.” Related Articles “The town is kind of on its ass in ways that worry even us locals,” said one longtime LA dealer, who didn’t want to be named. “The fires were really traumatizing in so many ways,” said dealer Anat Ebgi, who has a gallery on Wilshire Boulevard and another in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood. Afterward, she said, “The city was in a big depression, whether or not people realized that. We’re …

Ashley Stewart Rödder, Senior Director At Gagosian, Dies

Ashley Stewart Rödder, Senior Director At Gagosian, Dies

Published by Jenni Sidey

Ashley Stewart Rödder, a senior director at Gagosian, died earlier this month, the gallery confirmed in an email to ARTnews on Friday. No cause of death was provided. Stewart Rödder had served as a senior director at Gagosian since 2019. She had previously served as director of sales at Salon 94 for four years, as well as a variety of positions at David Zwirner over the course of seven years. In an emailed statement, dealer Larry Gagosian described Rödder as a “fierce advocate” for her artists. “Ashley distinguished herself as a fierce advocate for her artists, namely Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Deana Lawson and Stanley Whitney,” he said. “She was also deeply respected by her colleagues at the gallery and always conducted herself with great professionalism. Her passing is a tremendous loss and our thoughts are with her husband, family and friends.” Related Articles In a post on Instagram, Salon 94 described Rödder as “a beloved colleague” and a “tireless advocate” for artists. “We are saddened by the loss of Ashley Stewart Rodder, a beloved colleague who spent four …

Gagosian Director Dies at 42

Gagosian Director Dies at 42

Published by Jenni Sidey

Ashley Stewart Rödder, a director at Gagosian, died earlier this week at the age of 42 after battling a severe illness over the past several years, the gallery told ARTnews in an email Saturday. Stewart Rödder had served as a director at Gagosian since 2019, where she worked closely with artists, most notably Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Stanley Whitney, Titus Kaphar, and Deana Lawson. The gallery said she worked on numerous exhibitions across its locations in New York, Beverly Hills, Paris, London, and Athens. Stewart Rödder previously served as director of sales at Salon 94 for four years and held a variety of positions at David Zwirner over the course of seven years. Related Articles In an emailed statement, dealer Larry Gagosian said Stewart Rödder was a “fierce advocate” for her artists. “She was also deeply respected by her colleagues at the gallery and always conducted herself with great professionalism,” he said. “Her passing is a tremendous loss and our thoughts are with her husband, family and friends.” The gallery further described Stewart Rödder as “a …

Gagosian Opens 14th Roy Lichtenstein Show Ahead of Whitney Retrospective

Gagosian Opens 14th Roy Lichtenstein Show Ahead of Whitney Retrospective

Published by Jenni Sidey

This spring, Gagosian will open its 14th exhibition dedicated to Roy Lichtenstein. Titled “Painting with Scattered Brushstrokes,” the exhibition draws exclusively from the Lichtenstein family collection and will feature paintings, sculpture, watercolors, and works on paper from the 1970s and ’80s. Opening March 19 at the gallery’s 541 West 24th Street space, the show lands in the middle of a frenzied run of market activity for the late Pop artist, alongside a major Whitney Museum retrospective for Lichtenstein opening later this year. Related Articles Last April, Sotheby’s announced a consignment of more than 40 works from the artist’s family, estimated above $35 million. In September, it staged a dedicated single-owner sale of more than 90 works from the Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein Collection. Then in November, as part of the house’s contemporary evening sale, it sold eight works from the collection, achieving $20.7 million and a 100 percent sell-through rate. In total, Sotheby’s sold nearly $150 million worth of art by Lichtenstein. The Gagosian show focuses on a motif that Lichtenstein would return to again …

Leon Black Purchased 5 M. Picasso from Gagosian via Jeffrey Epstein

Leon Black Purchased $115 M. Picasso from Gagosian via Jeffrey Epstein

Published by José Betancourt

A newly released tranche of Jeffrey Epstein files from the Department of Justice show that Epstein was personally involved in high-profile transactions between Gagosian gallery and Leon Black, suggesting that Epstein’s role in liaising between the mega-gallery and the mega-collector ran even deeper than was previously known. The new files include many documents related to the sale of Pablo Picasso‘s 1931 sculpture Buste de Femme (Marie-Thérèse). While it was previously reported that Black won the work via Gagosian after a legal battle, it was not known that Epstein was one of the guiding forces behind the transaction. Related Articles Before that $115 million work appeared in “Picasso Sculpture,” a 2015 Museum of Modern Art exhibition that became a smash hit, Epstein was forwarded emails from legal representatives from Black who appear to have sought advice on the purchase. In one email from April 2015, a lawyer for Black showed Epstein a gestating legal agreement with proposed changes from both Gagosian and herself. Epstein wrote back, “well done.” Epstein appears to have been involved in months’ …

Larry Gagosian, Jasper Johns, and the Strategy Behind a Landmark Show

Larry Gagosian, Jasper Johns, and the Strategy Behind a Landmark Show

Published by José Betancourt

Why did Larry Gagosian want to stage a just-opened blockbuster exhibition of Jasper Johns‘s paintings at his Upper East Side gallery in New York? “First of all, because I want to look at them,” he told Alison McDonald in a soon-to-be-published Gagosian Quarterly interview. It’s not an especially lofty justification, but it’s at least an honest one—and it sets the tone for the entire conversation. In the piece, Gagosian talks fluently about the formal characteristics of Johns’s art—the way the 95-year-old artist works his surfaces, the way he wields his materials—but Gagosian generally doesn’t linger on the concepts behind the crosshatch paintings in this show. Instead, Gagosian is quickened, it seems, by what happens when you stand in front of these works for long enough. Related Articles The exhibition is undeniably strong. The crosshatch paintings, made between 1973 and 1983, are less austere than one might expect. Up close, they’re dense and worked, their encaustic interrupted by the occasional glimpse of newsprint or grit. From across the room, Johns’s marks loosen, and his grids soften. …

Longtime Gagosian Director Dies at 75

Longtime Gagosian Director Dies at 75

Published by José Betancourt

Bob Monk, a Gagosian director who was with the gallery for more than 20 years, working closely with artists such as Ed Ruscha and Richard Artschwager, died on December 15 at 75. His ex-wife, Wendy Monk, said the cause was complications from a heart condition. Monk was a quiet force of the New York art market, with a CV that included working for dealer Leo Castelli and Sotheby’s, to say little of the gallery that Monk himself cofounded. Across several decades, he established himself as a quiet force of the city’s market ecosystem. Related Articles Born in 1950, Monk grew up in Long Island, then moved with his family to Brooklyn. He attended Pratt Institute in New York, where he studied photography. He started his career in the art market at Leo Castelli Gallery, where he began as an assistant before becoming director of prints at Castelli Graphics, a prints-focused operation, in 1978. “I went to art school as a practicing artist and fell into the Castelli Gallery,” Monk said in a 2015 oral history. …