Marlborough Gallery, which has been at the forefront of the London commercial art world for 80 years, is due to close in the coming months. All of its locations in London, New York, Barcelona and Madrid will be closed by the board of trustees in a decision taken after ‘long and careful consideration’.
The gallery was founded in 1946 and went on to represent some of the most important artists of the post-war era, including Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. In the 1960s, it opened a space in New York and got itself right to the front of the abstract expressionist movement. Marlborough also represented the estates of many important artists, including Jackson Pollock and Ad Reinhardt, and developed a reputation for selling works by big names like Cezanne and Rothko. Serious art stuff.
But with the death of its founders, Marlborough has more recently been plunged into a messy fight for succession. There were family feuds and court cases, and even though a spokesman told The Art Newspaper the family issues ‘were resolved’ and had ‘nothing to do with this decision to wind down the business’, the business suffered. Turnover dropped, profits fell.
And now Marlborough Gallery is shutting up shop for good, and its whole artistic legacy is going up in smoke.
Want to see art in galleries which aren’t closing? Here are the top ten exhibitions in London.
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