Barbara Gladstone, one of today's most influential art dealers in New York, died in Paris at 89 on Sunday, June 16, after "a brief illness."
The gallery announced her death in an email sent to the press on Monday, June 17.
Her gallery, Gladstone Gallery, currently has locations in New York, Brussels, Seoul, and Rome. It has gathered a roster of celebrated artists, including Matthew Barney, Alex Katz, Joan Jonas, Wangechi Mutu, Keith Haring, Robert Rauschenberg, Carrie Mae Weems, Arthur Jafa, and many more.
She opened her gallery in New York in 1980 and has become one of the city's most renowned dealers.
Gladstone adopted a more measured and steadier approach during the period that saw the emergence of mega galleries and the expansion of ambitious dealers in cities worldwide. Her second Manhattan gallery was only opened in 2008, the same year she opened in Belgium.
In 2020, during the pandemic, she partnered with the maverick dealer Gavin Brown, who had closed his gallery and opened an outpost in the Italian capital. In 2022, her presence was inaugurated in South Korea.
The gallery's partners, Max Falkenstein, Caroline Luce, Paula Tsai, and Brown, described Gladstone in an email as 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.
"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 reads. "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."
