Virginia Dwan (October 18, 1931 – September 5, 2022)
was an American art collector, art patron, philanthropist, and founder of the Dwan Light Sanctuary in

Montezuma, New Mexico Montezuma is an unincorporated community in San Miguel County, New Mexico, United States. It is located approximately five miles northwest of the city of Las Vegas. The town was best known for many years for its natural hot springs, and was in fa ...

. She was the former owner and executive director of Dwan Gallery,

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

(1959–1967) and Dwan Gallery

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

(1965–1971), a contemporary art gallery closely identified with the American movements of

Minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...

Conceptual Art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called ins ...

, and

Earthworks Earthworks may refer to: Construction *Earthworks (archaeology), human-made constructions that modify the land contour *Earthworks (engineering), civil engineering works created by moving or processing quantities of soil *Earthworks (military), mi ...

Early life and education

Virginia Dwan, heiress to the

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over t ...

-based conglomerate 3M, was born in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origin ...

. She attended the

University of California at Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

to study art, but then dropped out and married a medical student in Los Angeles.

Michael Kimmelman Michael Kimmelman (born May 8, 1958) is the architecture critic for '' The New York Times'' and has written about public housing, public space, landscape architecture, community development and equity, infrastructure and urban design. He has repo ...

(May 11, 2003)
The Forgotten Godmother Of Dia's Artists
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. In 1950, Dwan married psychology graduate student Peter Fischer, and one month after her 19th birthday, she gave birth to her daughter, Candace. She married UCLA medical student Philippe Vadim Kondratief in 1958.

Career

Dwan leased a tiny storefront in a Spanish Mission-style building at 1091 Broxton Avenue in the Westwood section of Los Angeles in 1959. In its early years, Dwan Gallery showed some local artists, most notably

Ed Kienholz Edward Ralph Kienholz (October 23, 1927 – June 10, 1994) was an American Installation art, installation artist and assemblage (art), assemblage sculpture, sculptor whose work was highly critical of aspects of modern life. From 1972 onwards, he ...

, but, more significantly, it brought New York and European artists to Los Angeles, introducing them to the city and its artists. The artists she presented there included

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

, Yves Klein, Ad Reinhardt,

Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

Franz Kline Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...

Matsumi Kanemitsu Matsumi "Mike" Kanemitsu (May 28, 1922- May 11, 1992) was a Japanese-American painter who was also proficient in Japanese style Inkstick, ''sumi'' and lithography. Kanemitsu was born to Japanese parents in Ogden, Utah on May 28, 1922. At age th ...

and

Philip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...

. In contrast to

Ferus Gallery The Ferus Gallery was a contemporary art gallery which operated from 1957 to 1966. In 1957, the gallery was located at 736-A North La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, California. In 1958, it was relocated across the street to 723 North La Cienega ...

, Dwan was well funded.Scott Timberg (January 1, 2012)
Galleries fostered the L.A. art scene
''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

''. Dwan found a bigger space in 1962, hiring art dealer John Weber, who brought in a few of his own artists and organized some shows. In June 1962, Dwan moved to the new location at 10846 Lindbrook Drive,Dawson (2007), 43 which was twice as large as her first space. The building's renovation, which was designed by Morris Verger, a student of architect

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

, was inspired by the V.C. Morris store in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

designed by the latter. Dwan organized several influential exhibitions in her new space, including "My Country 'Tis of Thee", an exhibition of Pop Art held in November 1962. This show belongs to a substantial group of exhibitions in Los Angeles between 1962 and 1963 that heralded the arrival of Pop as a major artistic style in the early 1960s. Though "My Country 'Tis of Thee" focused on New York artists, it also included the work of Edward Kienholz. Another important exhibition included "Boxes" (1964), which featured box-shaped works by an international group of artists including Los Angeles sculptors Larry Bell, Tony Berlant, Edward Kienholz, Ron Miyashiro, and Ken Price. In 1965, Dwan moved to

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. She opened a place on 57th Street, leaving Weber to run the gallery in Los Angeles for a few years before he joined her in New York. That gallery would exhibit minimalist and conceptual artists including

Carl Andre Carl Andre (born September 16, 1935) is an American minimalist artist recognized for his ordered linear and grid format sculptures and for the suspected murder of contemporary and wife, Ana Mendieta. His sculptures range from large public art ...

Michael Heizer Michael Heizer (born 1944) is an American land artist specializing in large-scale and site-specific sculptures. Working largely outside the confines of the traditional art spaces of galleries and museums, Heizer has redefined sculpture in terms ...

, Kienholz,

Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...

, Charles Ross and

Robert Smithson Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and mu ...

. By 1969 she closed her Westwood space, which reopened as Doug Christmas' ACE Gallery.

's ''

Spiral Jetty ''Spiral Jetty'' is an earthwork sculpture constructed in April 1970 that is considered to be the most important work of American sculptor Robert Smithson. Smithson documented the construction of the sculpture in a 32-minute color film also tit ...

'' was financed in part by a $9,000 USD grant from the Virginia Dwan Gallery in 1970. A 20-year lease for the site was granted for $100 annually. Dwan then began to focus on

earthworks Earthworks may refer to: Construction *Earthworks (archaeology), human-made constructions that modify the land contour *Earthworks (engineering), civil engineering works created by moving or processing quantities of soil *Earthworks (military), mi ...

such as the ''35-Pole Lightning Field'' by Walter De Maria (the precursor to his '' Lightning Field'') and Ross's '' Star Axis'', a naked eye observatory in

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Albuquerque metropolitan area, Tiguex , Offi ...

whose construction she supported from its conception in 1971.Wagley, Catherine
"Virginia Dwan, influential L.A. gallerist and risk-taking arts patron, dies,"
''Los Angeles Times'', September 17, 2022. Retrieved September 20, 2022. She also purchased the land for Michael Heizer's ''Double Negative''.

Legacy

In 1965, the Virginia Dwan Collection, featuring artists like

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...

(''Untitled'', 1961),

Claes Oldenburg Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...

, and

Lee Bontecou Lee Bontecou (January 15, 1931 – November 8, 2022) was an American sculptor and printmaker and a pioneer figure in the New York art world. She kept her work consistently in a recognizable style, and received broad recognition in the 1960s. Bont ...

, was exhibited at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...

. Dwan later gave many artworks to various museums in the United States. Already in 1969, she presented the Pasadena Art Museum (present day Norton Simon Museum) with '' L.H.O.O.Q. or La Joconde'' (1964) by

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

. In 1985, Dwan donated

's project ''

Double Negative A double negative is a construction occurring when two forms of grammatical negation are used in the same sentence. Multiple negation is the more general term referring to the occurrence of more than one negative in a clause. In some languages, ...

'' (1969), two 100-foot-long cuts facing each other across the curving rim of

Mormon Mesa Mormon Mesa is a mesa between the Virgin River and the Muddy River in Clark County, southern Nevada. In the south above the confluence of the Muddy and Virgin Rivers, it rises to a height of 1893 feet (577 meters). It extends northward to the f ...

(Clark County, Nevada), to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA). In 1996, she gave Heizer's ''Actual Size: Munich Rotary'' (1970), six projected photographic images, each wide and high, to the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

.Carol Vogel (October 12, 2007)
With Altria Leaving, Whitney Loses Branch
''

''. Dwan conceived and supported construction of the ''Dwan Light Sanctuary'' (1996), a structural artwork and secular space in Montezuma, New Mexico built in collaboration with architect Laban Wingert and Charles Ross, who contributed the space's solar spectrum artwork.Rizzo, Angie
"Holy Architecture for Earthly Devotion,"
''Hyperallergic'', January 28, 2020. Retrieved January 27, 2022.Eddy, Jordan
"Field Report: Las Vegas, NM,"
''Southwest Contemporary'', August 28, 2018. Retrieved January 27, 2022. Other works were given to other museums, including: the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

, New York; the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

; the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...

in Minneapolis; the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

; the

Weatherspoon Art Museum The Weatherspoon Art Museum is located at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is one of the largest collections of modern and contemporary art in the southeast with a focus on American art. Its programming includes fifteen or more ...

at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; and the

Des Moines Art Center The Des Moines Art Center is an art museum with an extensive collection of paintings, sculpture, modern art and mixed media. It was established in 1948 in Des Moines, Iowa. History The Art Center traces its roots to 1916, when the Des Moines A ...

. In 2013, Dwan gave ''A Nonsite, Pine Barrens, New Jersey'' (1968) by Robert Smithson, an indoor work containing substances from an outdoor site elsewhere; and ''Glass Stratum'' (1967) by Timothy McCormack, made up of 37 sheets of half-inch-thick glass layered atop one another, to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. ;Collection pledged to National Gallery Dwan's private collection was pledged as a promised gift to the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

in 2013.The Washington Post.com: "National Gallery of Art to get 250 works from Virginia Dwan Collection"
by Katherine Boyle September 26, 2013.
by Carol Vogel, 26 September 2013. The 250 artworks include paintings, sculptures, drawings, and photographs from the late 1950s through the 1970s. It includes works by 52 modern artists, including:

Arman Arman (November 17, 1928 – October 22, 2005) was a French-born American artist. Born Armand Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman was a painter who moved from using objects for the ink or paint traces they leave (''cachets'', ''allures d'objet'') to ...

, Walter de Maria,

Dan Flavin Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933 – November 29, 1996) was an American Minimalism, minimalist artist famous for creating sculpture, sculptural objects and installations from commercially available Fluorescent lamp, fluorescent light fixtures. Earl ...

, Yves Klein,

Agnes Martin Agnes Bernice Martin (March 22, 1912 – December 16, 2004), was an American abstract painter. Her work has been defined as an "essay in discretion on inward-ness and silence". Although she is often considered or referred to as a minimalist, Mart ...

, Martial Raysse, Ad Reinhardt,

Larry Rivers Larry Rivers (born Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg) (1923 – 2002) was an American artist, musician, filmmaker, and occasional actor. Considered by many scholars to be the "Godfather" and "Grandfather" of Pop art, he was one of the first artists ...

, Fred Sandback,

, Niki de Saint Phalle,

Jean Tinguely Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss sculptor best known for his kinetic art sculptural machines (known officially as Métamatics) that extended the Dada tradition into the later part of the 20th century. Tinguely's art ...

. The works have gone on display for the exhibition, “From Los Angeles to New York: The Dwan Gallery 1959-1971”, National Gallery (2016−2017), and traveled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) (2017).National Gallery of Art: "Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959–1971"
— ''exhibit at National Gallery (2016−2017) + LACMA (2017) ''. ;Archives The Dwan Gallery Archives are held at the

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. and at the

Center for Curatorial Studies Founded in 1990, the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard) is an exhibition and research center dedicated to the study of art and exhibition practices from the 1960s to the present. The Center initiated its graduate program in 1994 ...

Bard College Bard College is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic District—a National Historic Landmark. Founded in 1860, ...

, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

References

Sources

* Dawson, Jessica (2007). "Virginia Dwan Los Angeles". ''Archives of American Art Journal'' 46 (3/4).

External links

National Gallery of Art: Virginia Dwan CollectionSmithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art: Dwan Gallery (Los Angeles, California + New York, New York) Archives
— ''homepage for collection's digitized records''.
Smithsonian Institution: Oral history interview with Virginia Dwan (1984)Dwan Gallery publications and ephemera, 1960-1971
finding aid, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession No. 2012.M.37. The Collection consists of exhibition announcements, posters and exhibition catalogs documenting the exhibitions held at Virginia Dwan's influential galleries in Los Angeles and New York. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dwan, Virginia 1931 births 2022 deaths American art collectors American art dealers Women art dealers Women art collectors Philanthropists from California Philanthropists from New York (state) American contemporary art

Dwan Gallery Dwan is both a surname and a given name. Notable people with the name include: *Allan Dwan (1885–1981), pioneering Canadian-born American film director, producer and screenwriter *Dorothy Dwan (1906–1981), American actress of the 1920s *Jack Dw ...

Art gallery owners