Richard Feigen has been winding down his holdings for some time. But there has not been confirmation that long-standing dealer has decided to wrap things up until yesterday’s story in the New York Times about David Zwirner expanding to the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
ArtNews’s Nate Freeman read the announcement that Zwirner would take over Feigen’s old space in conjunction with Adler Beatty, the son-mother advisory business emerging from Feigen’s retirement, and picked up the phone to get the whole story. Here’s what he heard:
As Feigen was deciding to move out, Beatty was mulling a new venture with her son, but wanted to stay in the same building. While looking for a tenant to share the space, Beatty ran into Kristine Bell, who directed the Zwirner & Wirth space and is now a partner at David Zwirner, at a lunch. She mentioned to Bell, off-hand, that Feigen was moving out, and she had some extra space.
“She said, ‘We’ve been looking for space on the Upper East Side for two years,” Beatty told me over the phone. “It was a eureka moment. When she said that to me I almost fell over. I said, ‘Well, shall we go over there after lunch?’ “
She added that she’s close with Zwirner’s father, the dealer Rudolf Zwirner, and that she’s known David for over 30 years, since when he was a fledgling dealer in his 20s.
It will be Zwirner’s third gallery in New York, as he has two already in Chelsea. He also has a gallery in London, and a space set to open next year in Hong Kong.
David Zwirner to Open Gallery on Upper East Side in Space Shared with New Advisory Firm Adler Beatty (ARTnews)
