Ivan C. Karp (June 4, 1926 – June 28, 2012) was an American

art dealer An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art, or acts as the intermediary between the buyers and sellers of art. An art dealer in contemporary art typically seeks out various artists to represent, and builds relationsh ...

, gallerist and author instrumental in the emergence of pop art and the development of Manhattan's SoHo gallery district in the 1960s. Ivan Karp was born in

the Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

and grew up in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

. His career in art began in 1955, when he served as the first art critic of the

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Ma ...

. In 1956, he joined the Hansa Gallery, a downtown artists' cooperative gallery that had moved uptown to Central Park South. Karp was co-director, alongside Richard Bellamy, who later founded the

Green Gallery The Green Gallery was an art gallery that operated between 1960 and 1965 at 15 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City. The gallery's director was Richard Bellamy, and its financial backer was the art collector Robert Scull. Green Gallery ...

. He moved to the relatively new

Leo Castelli Gallery Leo Castelli ( Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-American art dealer who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased contemporary art for five decades. Among the movements which Castelli sh ...

in 1959 as associate director. While there, he helped sell the works of, popularize and market the initial generation of Pop artists, including

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein ( ; October27, 1923September29, 1997) was an American pop artist. He rose to prominence in the 1960s through pieces which were inspired by popular advertising and the comic book style. Much of his work explores the relations ...

and

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" or "Bob" 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 Combine painting, Combines (1954� ...

. On April 25, 1966, in

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

Magazine, Ivan Karp is described as the "

Sol Hurok Sol Hurok (also Solomon Israilevich Hurok; born Solomon Izrailevich Gurkov, Russian language, Russian Соломон Израилевич Гурков; April 9, 1888March 5, 1974) was a 20th-century American impresario. Early life Hurok was born ...

of Pop Art". He said he was devoted to this art form because the artists "transform banal objects. They see beauty in all things". Karp worked with Castelli for ten years, leaving in 1969 to open the

OK Harris Gallery The OK Harris Gallery was an art gallery located at 383 West Broadway in SoHo, New York City. The gallery closed in 2014. Founded by longtime art dealer Ivan Karp after leaving the Leo Castelli gallery in 1969 where he had worked as gallery co-dir ...

SoHo SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

, Manhattan. Karp's was the second art gallery to open on West Broadway, which ultimately became the core of the SoHo gallery district. His initial focus at O.K. Harris was on

Photorealism Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can b ...

, with artists such as Robert Cottingham and

Robert Bechtle Robert Alan Bechtle (May 14, 1932 – September 24, 2020) was an American Painting, painter, printmaker, and educator. He lived nearly all his life in the San Francisco Bay Area and whose art was centered on scenes from everyday local life. His p ...

. Other artists represented by the gallery included

Deborah Butterfield Deborah Kay Butterfield (born May 7, 1949) is an American sculptor. Along with her artist-husband John Buck, she divides her time between a farm in Bozeman, Montana, and studio space in Hawaii. She is known for her sculptures of horses made fr ...

, Malcolm Morley and

Duane Hanson Duane Hanson (January 17, 1925 – January 6, 1996) was an American artist and sculptor born in Minnesota. He spent most of his career in South Florida. He was known for his life-sized realistic sculptures of people. He cast the works based on ...

. In the early 1960s, Karp led efforts to salvage architectural ornament from older New York City buildings that were being demolished for new construction. He founded the Anonymous Arts Recovery Society and often drove around the streets of Manhattan and the Bronx spotting and collecting materials from building sites before they could be carted away as rubble. Many of the hundreds of items recovered by Karp and his colleagues were deposited in the collection of the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

, displayed in the sculpture garden and the subway station adjacent to the museum. The Brooklyn Museum transferred 1500 architectural artifacts to the National Building Arts Center, located in Sauget, Illinois. Others are housed in the Anonymous Arts Museum Karp founded in Charlotteville, New York. Karp wrote a 1965 comic novel, "Doobie Doo", about love among pop artists with cover art by Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. He died on June 28, 2012, at the age of 86, in Charlotteville, New York.

Notes

External links

Archives of American Art, Interview with Ivan KarpThe Gallerist, Where Did the Name OK Harris Come From?Video interview with Ivan KarpBrooklyn Museum sculpture gardenNational Building Arts Center Mission
1926 births 2012 deaths American art collectors American art dealers People from Manhattan People from Brooklyn People from the Bronx 20th-century American businesspeople {{US-business-bio-1920s-stub