Stephen Friedman Gallery Exits New York
55Nov. 26, 2025
Stephen Friedman Gallery has announced that it will shutter its New York outpost at the end of February 2026. The gallery, which had moved to its TriBeCa space just over two years ago, will continue to operate its London flagship, in business since 1995, and has said it will maintain its full artist roster. Stephen Friedman currently represents artists including Caroline Coon, Denzil Forrester, Rivane Neuenschwander, Yinka Shonibare, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Kehinde Wiley, and David Shrigley, the last of whom has beenmuchin thepresslately thanks to his “Exhibition of Old Rope,” where a ten-ton pile of salvaged rope is currently on offer for £1 million ($1.3 million).
The gallery in a press release cast the closure as a consolidation rather than a retreat, noting that it was at the same time expanding both its team and its international reach through art fairs, institutional collaborations, and relationships with artists and collectors. “This will bolster our ability to remain engaged with the US art scene through our active participation in major fairs and our longstanding relationships with artists, museums, and collectors across the country,” said a gallery spokeswoman in an email toArtforum. Stephen Friedman pointed to its successes thus far in securing US institutional shows for its artists, among them Deborah Roberts’s upcoming solo exhibition at the FLAG Art Foundation in New York, Quick-to-See Smith’s retrospective this year at the Saint Louis Art Museum, and Denzil Forrester’s 2023 retrospective at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, among others.
In beating a retreat from the Big Apple, Stephen Friedman joins such operations as Canal Projects, Clearing, Kasmin, Sperone Westwater, Tilton Gallery, and Venus Over Manhattan, all of which have closed in New York in recent months. However, as Artnews’s Daniel Cassady points out, citing Tim Schneider’s Substack newsletter The Gray Market, the number of new galleries springing up in the city or expanding their operations is roughly equal to the number of exits.