News from New York: New Yorkers toast their newest export to London, and Katharine Hepburn's wedding dress goes on the block

Apollo, July, 2004 by Louise Nicholson

As London mops its brow after the 24/7 art frenzy of fairs, shows and auctions throughout June, one American dealer is assessing the fortunes of his latest bigger splash. Larry Gagosian, who had tested London art waters in 2000 with a small space in Mayfair, opened his large and light-drenched 12,500-square-foot gallery in King's Cross, London, to coincide with the jamboree.

Mr Gagosian is already a legend in New York, where he has two galleries. One is on the top two floors of 980 Madison Avenue, where works by Frank Stella and Robert Rauschenberg, two of his astounding stable of artists, are currently on display. The other is a large upbeat space on West 24th Street in downtown Chelsea--similar in size and feel to his King's Cross one. Here, crowds are flocking to see a loan exhibition of Willem de Kooning canvases celebrating the centenary of his birth. For upscale New Yorkers who do not find themselves on the corner of 11th Avenue if they can help it, it is testimony to the dealer many art critics love to hate.

This kind of exhibition is what Mr Gagosian does well. In his two New York galleries and another in Beverly Hills, he has staged a series of landmark historical exhibitions including Jasper Johns's 'Maps', Jackson Pollack's 'Black Enamel Paintings', and Cy Twombly's 'Bolsena Paintings'. New Yorkers approve: 'MOMA would have been proud to mount them. He does what most museums can't afford to.' Precisely who backs these museum-quality shows, and precisely how he has such borrowing pull is a mystery to most--although rumours abound.

Curator Robert Pincus-Witten has helped Mr Gagosian win credibility for such shows. But the flair and daring are his own, as is his obsessive love of the deal. 'He is more driven and more workaholic than the other dealers', one collector noted. 'And he thinks about the deal all the time'. A few years ago he brought a huge installation by Damien Hirst from Britain to New York. He opened his Chelsea gallery in 1999 with Richard Serra's massive piece, Switch. Followers lap it up, saying 'he puts on show after show of absolutely stunning stuff'.

Others dismiss him with more than a twinge of jealousy. As an objective east coast art connoisseur recalls: 'When he arrived in New York from LA in the 1980s--where he ran a good gallery--people resented him because he didn't have the right degree from an east coast college. They thought he was a 'wannabe' from the west. They even resented his dashing looks and his charm.'

Instead of joining the coterie of midtown dealers, Mr Gagosian went straight downtown. Seen as an interloper with no rights to artists, he mounted historical shows. The first was an exhibition of Emily and Burton Tremaine's collection--he would later sell the Tremaine Mondrian, Victory boogie woogie, for more than $10 million.

Then, when the New York art world was shaken up in the early 90s, he grabbed his chance and began to represent living artists. 'Gagosian has always thought big', says one New York-London dealer. 'He is always ahead of the game, and he does it quicker and better than the rest of us.' Others heap more praise: 'From the start he has always had superb staff, absolutely top people who really know.'

Today Mr Gagosian has five galleries. Three of them are remarkable spaces--Beverly Hills was designed by Richard Meier, Chelsea by Richard Gluckman, King's Cross by Caruso St John. He continues with his historical shows. He is a top player in the secondary market, usually buying a work outright from a collector for a large sum and selling it on for substantially more. And he represents some of the world's top living artists on both sides of the Atlantic: in sculpture, Britain's Rachel Whiteread and America's Richard Serra; in painting, Britain's Howard Hodgkin and America's Cy Twombly. A further feather in his cap: he continues his tradition of showing lesser-known artists.

The low profile, secretive Larry Gagosian wears one ambition on his sleeve: to run the world's best galleries. He might well achieve it.

Away from the high art stakes, nostalgic New Yorkers are enjoying a full seven days of previews for one of Sotheby's more intimate sales. The private belongings of Katharine Hepburn have been gathered into 691 lots and arranged in, appropriately, twenty-four room-sized sets to recreate the home-loving, practical side of the glamorous Hollywood star. Items include school books, the wedding dress for her brief marriage, the paintings done when bored while Howard Hughes was wooing her on his yacht, even the bronze she made of her true love, Spencer Tracey.

While Miss Hepburn's costumes, awards and other career-related possessions go direct to charities, this sale benefits one more charity before it goes under the hammer. The gala cocktail evening raises funds for American students to train at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and, perhaps, follow Miss Hepburn's road to success.

Postscript: the hot spot for a Friday or Saturday Manhattan cocktail is the Roof Garden of the Met, where Andy Goldsworthy is the first artist to create a work especially for the site. The patient wait in line to buy frozen margueritas. More romantic is simply to enjoy Goldsworthy's moody Stone houses and gaze over Central Park, unusually lush thanks to continuing summer rains. The party runs till the end of October.