Art World Luminaries Remember Legendary Dealer Barbara Gladstone

When news broke on Monday that legendary art dealer Barbara Gladstone had died, it felt like something the end of an era for the New York art world.

Gladstone had opened her gallery in 1980 in a shoebox space on 57th Street before moving to larger digs. First, she relocated to SoHo around 1983, then to Chelsea in 1996. She placed an emphasis on growing organically, and was “attuned to the granular movements and energies that best serve artists,” as she once told ARTnews. Her gallery now has locations in Brussels, Seoul, Rome, and Los Angeles, in addition to its three spaces in New York.

Over the decades, she established her gallery as one of a select few blue-chip commercial spaces that had a strong curatorial vision, with an eye toward the conceptual. Among the artists whose careers she helped shepherd to stardom are Matthew Barney, Jenny Holzer, Richard Prince, Sarah Lucas, George Condo, and others.

ARTnews reached out to art world luminaries people close to Gladstone, asking them to write about the woman they knew. Their answers follow below.

Kathy Halbreich
Independent Curator

There are a million words that I could use to describe my dear friend, but none seem vivid enough. Barbara was a woman of conscience—emotionally and intellectually balanced, strong, loyal, tough when she needed to be, successful, generous beyond measure, kind but not sentimental, and most deeply engaged with the artists and staff who brought her immense pleasure when their voices grew clear and they advanced along the path they dreamed of. Her family went through a lot and came out closer. 

As the images unspool of the times spent together—laughing, arguing, gossiping, and sharing improbable ideas that looked inevitable to her—I keep imagining Barbara will walk around the corner as she always has, no matter what (and there were a lot of “whats” that would have knocked many others out). Usually, she came with a homemade soup or ice cream or a bottle of very good tequila, or all three, to share among friends: artists, writers, musicians, curators, deep thinkers, optimists. 

Barbara had many loves.

She loved architectural history and the newest technological advances, although AI scared her before many knew anything about artificial intelligence. She had remarkable taste and was elegance personified; her table, where many of us gathered often, was set with an eye for a calm sort of beauty and all her black garments somehow looked colorful. Her elegance also was enhanced by an unshakable integrity and an enduring commitment to the messiness of creativity. Some days, we thought the things that made us love what we did were disappearing. But nothing could stop Barbara from being the most ambitious advocate for those she believed in—artists as well as young musicians and puppies trained by prisoners, two of which came to live with her. 

She gave substance to the word “invincible”—she had the strongest will to continue of anyone I have known; she loved the passion and devotion that shaped her days, the more exciting and energizing. Anything less than a wholly animated life was out of the question. Even at 89, she often traveled across continents to an artist’s openings and, indeed, she had recently returned from trips to Seoul and Basel, when she suddenly became ill, having just arrived for Matthew Barney’s opening in Paris. 

It wasn’t supposed to end this way. I last saw her on June 4 at a MoMA event, and she looked fabulous. Sunday, after a shockingly abrupt and blessedly short illness, Barbara vanished. I kept wondering when she would tire. Never seemed possible. 

On the first day of installing Elizabeth Murray’s drawing show [recently on view at Gladstone Gallery in New York], at the extraordinary townhouse designed by Edward Durrell Stone, I got a call from Barbara; she just had landed from Seoul and apologized for not being able to join me that day. I was glad, because I wanted to tidy up a few things as sometimes the smallest detail would disturb her. She appeared the next morning, and we shared lots of joy that day. She was happy with the show, with Paul Chan’s tender essay about touch, with the artists and curators whose talks I would be moderating, and with how happy Elizabeth’s family was. It was an enormous gift she gave to me. When I was struggling to figure out the works I wanted to have framed, she said something no one else ever has remarked and something I have never said to anyone either: “Frame them all.” She was an unstinting partner, and she loved wholeheartedly.

We all know that Barbara didn’t suffer fools, but she was far from a snob or someone who made seating arrangements based on hierarchy. She inhaled new ideas and was fueled by having young thinkers around her. (But she also relished the experimental ambition of established artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, whose work she began to represent in 2021.) A curator I have known since he was just out of grad school wrote me last night and said, “I will always remember how kind Barbara was to me when I was so young and naive and inexperienced. She never made me feel that I didn’t deserve her time or a place at her table. Immensely grateful.”

I had the same experience when I first met Barbara in the late 1980s and was invited to the dinner for Jenny Holzer’s extraordinary 1990 US Pavilion. I expected I would be seated by the swinging kitchen door and, knowing few in the crowd, wondered why I had agreed to attend. I soon found myself in the middle of the palatial room, at Barbara’s table. And until Sunday, I never left it. 

Jay Sanders
Executive Director & Chief Curator, Artists Space

It’s hard to fathom an art world without Barbara. Her integrity, fierce wit, and mercurial outlook kept everyone around her utterly alert and calling upon their higher facilities to keep up. I can’t remember a single conversation that dwelled in the status quo or reinforced an unexamined point of view; it just wasn’t possible with Barbara.

Along with being a friend and mentor, she was an invaluable Artists Space board member and collaborator, playing a particularly critical role in supporting and advising on our current space in Cortlandt Alley as we materialized it. While certainly centered in her gallery and its stellar program (which included our shared obsession Jack Smith), she saw our field clearly, sociologically, and cared immensely for the parts of it that, to her, mattered. I will treasure every moment I spent with her, and hold a special place for the annual Perelman Music Program concert she hosted each summer in Long Island. As [choreographer and artist] Sarah Michelson just reminded me, this was her self-proclaimed “favorite night of the year,” as she beamed as a witness and active participant of young people realizing their dreams.

Shaun Caley Regen
President, Regen Projects

I was lucky enough to meet Barbara in the mid-’80s, when I was an art critic. Over the years she has been a mentor, friend, mother-in-law, and inspiration.  

Her brilliance, fearlessness, curiosity, conviction, humor, rigor, discipline, and passion made for a larger-than-life, colorful, and truly incredible presence. The trajectory of her gallery throughout these four decades has been legendary, but also a primer on how such a thing can be achieved.  

Barbara has touched so many of our lives, both artists’ and everyone else’s, brought us to the table, and shown us how much art matters, and what we can achieve by showing up for art. She will be missed by many, but her legacy will live on. Thank you, Barbara, for showing us the way to get things done, and all of the incredible moments and warmth along the way. You will be missed with profound love and admiration.

Jim Hodges
Artist, represented by Gladstone since 2010

No doubt there were plenty of loving friends who cherished Barbara, answering your invitation to share a few words in the terrible wake of her passing. I trust all those voices combine to approach a nearness to her beautiful powerful nature that we all gravitated to and really could never get enough of. What an extraordinary profound person she was. We will all miss her always and remain so tremendously grateful to have had her in our lives, we lucky ones, who found such an intensity that she generated the treasure we each were gifted with from all she was and gave. Her exquisite model of how a person can be, how a life can be made and dreams realized for not just herself but for all of us who benefit from the efforts and belief she embodied.

The world is exponentially more brilliant because of Barbara in it, and a tragic mournful void expanded in sadness in her departure. She who stayed always youthful in her enthusiasm and excitement that artists across a spectrum of practices found her supporting and caring attention inspiring us to reach higher, strive, and give. She was a perfect example of how it can happen. A life that touched so many and a constant measured consistency that we all could count on. What an incredible love she was. I miss her so and am so very grateful that we had the time we had of friendship and such fun making magic together! What a treasure she was and will always remain in the hearts that are forever informed and changed because of her.

I’m sending all my love to those at the gallery who must more than anyone feel the impossible abyss her death leaves. There are never enough words or depth of feelings to share in these crushing sorrowful times, but hoping you all are finding comfort and love in knowing you are all a reflection of the magnificent life she manifested in the incredible world she imagined and made come true!

With my deepest condolences to all my friends at Gladstone Gallery.

Love,
Jim