Sperone Westwater, the New York gallery that helped bring international fame to Bruce Nauman, Richard Long, Francesco Clemente and countless others, will close after 50 years in business. Its final show will be a current one by the British sculptor Lang, who has had more than a dozen shows at the gallery since its inception.
“After 50 years of success, Sperone Westwater Gallery will close on December 31, with co-founders Angela Westwater and Gian Enzo Sperone deciding to pursue separate careers,” the gallery said in a statement. “They are grateful to everyone who has contributed to the gallery’s success and achievements.”
The gallery will still be participating in Art Basel Miami Beach next month. Art Network NewsRumors of the gallery’s impending closure were first reported by Katya Kazakina on Friday and confirmed on Monday.
Sperone Westwater was founded in SoHo in 1975 as Sperone Westwater Fischer. (The gallery’s third dealer of the same name, Konrad Fischer, folded in 1982 and died in 1996. The Düsseldorf gallery he founded is still in operation.) The gallery’s first show was for Carl Andre, followed the following year by Douglas Huebler, On Kawara, and Brice Marden. He held exhibitions with other important artists of the time.
In the 1980s, Sperone Westwater became a destination for a type of painting known as Neo-Expressionism for the way it revived gestural brushstrokes. Clemente, Mimmo Paladino, Sandro Chia and Enzo Cucchi, three painters considered protagonists of a subset of the Italian ultra-avant-garde movement, exhibited alongside the American painter Susan Rothenberg.
A range of less easily categorized artists are also represented in the gallery, including Wim Delvoye, Not Vital, Guillermo Kuitca, Mario Merz, Alexis Rockman, Wolfgang Laib and others.
The gallery’s work tends to be closely scrutinized and sometimes polarizing. David Lynch, best known as a filmmaker, first showed his paintings in an exhibition with Sperone Westwater, but it did not receive positive reviews. His estate is now represented by Pace Gallery, one of the largest galleries in the world.
For years, the gallery’s roster skewed toward white men from Europe, and Sperone Westwater has recently made its work more diverse. Ivorian painter Joana Choumali and Puerto Rican artist Gamaliel Rodriguez have both exhibited at the gallery in the past two years.
Since 2010, Sperone Westwater has been located on the Bowery, adjacent to the New Museum. It’s unclear what will happen to the roughly 20,000-square-foot eight-story building designed by Norman Foster.
The gallery was the most high-profile gallery closing in New York last year. Other blue-chip spaces closing in New York include Blum, Venus OverManhattan, Clearing and Tilton.
