Acquavella Galleries

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The Acquavella Galleries is an art dealer founded in 1921, which has had its offices in the Upper East Side of Manhattan at 18 East 79th Street since 1967 .

history

The founder of the gallery was Nicholas Acquavella, who immigrated to the USA from Naples in 1919 and two years later started an art trade in Italian paintings at 598 Madison Avenue . The gallery, which has been family-owned since then, grew through the sale of paintings from the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods to American private collectors and museums. In 1956 the gallery, like Armand Hammer , acquired part of the collection of the film actor Edward G. Robinson . Since 1960, when the founder's son, William Acquavella, became a co-owner of the gallery, paintings by European painters of the 19th and 20th centuries have been sold. In 1965 William was able to acquire 22 paintings from Pierre Bonnard's estate , 17 of which he was able to sell privately to collectors before they were shown in the gallery.

In 1960 the Acquavella Galleries merged with the auction house Sotheby’s in a subsidiary of Sotheby's to form the company Acquavella Modern Art . This merger acquired the entire inventory of the Pierre Matisse Gallery in Manhattan in 1990 . Thanks to his expertise and thanks to his relationships with collectors and the museum world, William Acquavella was able to sell around 2,300 works by artists of the classical modern era privately or at auctions.

Acquavella's daughter and two grandchildren are now working in the gallery. The British painter Lucian Freud was represented by Acquavella Galleries until his death in 2011. Today the gallery represents artists such as James Rosenquist , Enoc Perez and Damian Loeb .

The master of the Acquavella still life is named after the art dealer .

Mishaps

  • In 2006 casino owner Steve Wynn damaged his 1932 Picasso painting Le Rêve on the gallery's premises after selling it to hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen for US $ 139 million . The deal was canceled after this damage.
  • In 2012 another Picasso ( Femme Assise dans un fauteuil ), which was kept at the gallery, was damaged there before it was auctioned off at Sotheby's.

Exhibitions

Web links

Coordinates: 40 ° 46 ′ 35 "  N , 73 ° 57 ′ 45"  W.