Sperone Westwater Closing in New York After Five Decades

Sperone Westwater Closing in New York After Five Decades

NotedNew Yorkgallery Sperone Westwater has announced that it is shuttering at the end of the year. “After fifty successful years, Sperone Westwater Gallery will be closing on December 31, as cofounders Angela Westwater and Gian Enzo Sperone have decided to pursue separate endeavors,” the gallery said in a statement. “They appreciate everyone who contributed to the gallery’s success and accomplishments.” Its current exhibition, ofwork by British sculptor Richard Long, will be its last, running through December 13. The gallery will participate in Art Basel Miami Beach from December 5–7 as originally planned.

Westwater and Sperone founded their namesake gallery in SoHo in 1975 alongside Konrad Fischer. Fischer, who died in 1996, split from the gallery in 1982 to establish his own still-running operation in Düsseldorf. The gallery quickly gained a reputation for showing cutting-edge European artists, giving Gerhard Richter his first New York show and championing Arte Povera before the movement was widely appreciated in the States. Among the artists it represented over the decades are Francesco Clemente, Sandro Chia, Douglas Huebler, On Kawara, Guillermo Kuitca, Wolfgang Laib, Brice Marden, Mario Merz, Bruce Nauman, and Susan Rothenberg.

In 2010, Sperone Westwater moved into its current home, an eight-story, Norman Foster–designed building at 257 Bowery. Reported to have cost $20 million, the building is a few doors down from the New Museum. The building’s fate is unclear, as are the plans of Sperone and Westwater, though Artnews reports that Sperone filed a lawsuit in August against Westwater, claiming he was in a “parasitic deadlock” with her after she gained control of a corporation that had a 50 percent stake in their gallery. Sperone Westwater is the latest well-known operation to close in New York in the past few months, following Venus Over Manhattan, Clearing, and Tilton, among others.