Leo Castelli ( Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-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 ...

who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased

contemporary art Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

for five decades. Among the movements which Castelli showed were

Surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

Neo-Dada Neo-Dada was an art movement with audio, visual and literary manifestations that had similarities in method or intent with earlier Dada artwork. It sought to close the gap between art and daily life, and was a combination of playfulness, iconoclas ...

, pop art, op art, color field painting,

hard-edge painting Hard-edge painting (also referred to as Hard Edge or Hard-edged) is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas often consist of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstra ...

lyrical abstraction Lyrical abstraction arose from either of two related but distinct art movement, trends in Post-war Modernist painting: * European ''Abstraction Lyrique'': a movement that emerged in Paris, with the French art critic Jean José Marchand being cr ...

minimalism In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

, conceptual art, and

neo-expressionism Neo-expressionism is a style of Late modernism, late modernist or early-Postmodern art, postmodern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called ''Transavantgarde'', ''Junge Wilde'' or ''Neue Wild ...

Early life and career

Leo Castelli was born Leo Krausz,Dwight Garner (May 18, 2010)
A Smooth Operator, at the Vanguard of the Gallery World in the 1960s
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. in

Trieste Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the Province of Trieste, ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

, the second of three children of Italian and Austro-Hungarian Jewish origin. Peter Schjeldahl (June 7, 2010)
Leo the Lion – How the Castelli gallery changed the art world
''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

''. His father was Ernest Krauss, a Hungarian by birth, who had gone to Trieste as a young man and married wealthy heiress Bianca Castelli,Myrna Oliver (August 24, 1999)
Leo Castelli; Influential Dealer Promoted Careers of Artists From Johns to Warhol
''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

''. from an established family of coffee importers.Gerald Clarke (February 26, 1979)
Dealer Leo Castelli Sold the World on Pop Art, and Now He's Cleaning Up
''

People The term "the people" refers to the public or Common people, common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. I ...

''.John Russell (August 23, 1999)
Leo Castelli, Influential Art Dealer, Dies at 91
''

''. After World War I, which the family spent in Vienna (where Leo Castelli learned perfect German), they returned to Trieste. The family changed its name to "Krausz-Castelli" and then "Castelli" in the mid-1930s, when

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

's government required names to be Italianized. After earning a law degree at the

University of Milan The University of Milan (; ), officially abbreviated as UNIMI, or colloquially referred to as La Statale ("the State niversity), is a public university, public research university in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Eu ...

in 1924, Castelli returned to Trieste, where his father had secured a job for him with an insurance company. In 1932, he went to work for an insurance company in Bucharest, where he married Ileana Schapira one year later. After their wedding, the couple honeymooned in Vienna and bought their first artwork, a

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...

watercolor. Castelli's father-in-law, Mihai Schapira, helped him to be transferred in 1935 to the

Banca d'Italia The Bank of Italy (Italian language, Italian: ''Banca d'Italia'', , informally referred to as ''Bankitalia'') is the National central bank (Eurosystem), national central bank for Italy within the Eurosystem. It was the Italian central bank from ...

in Paris. There, Ileana's taste and money helped him start his first gallery at

Place Vendôme The Place Vendôme (), earlier known as the Place Louis-le-Grand, and also as the Place Internationale, is a square in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France, located to the north of the Tuileries Gardens and east of the Église de la Madelein ...

in Paris, which was named for its co-director, the decorator René Drouin, and situated between the Ritz Hotel and the couturier Elsa Schiaparelli. Specializing in surrealistic art, the gallery opened in July 1939, with a show of modern and antique furniture, including commissioned pieces by Drouin,

Max Ernst Max Ernst (; 2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German-born painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and surrealism in Europe. He had no formal artistic trai ...

, Meret Oppenheim,

Leonor Fini Leonor Fini (30 August 1907 – 18 January 1996) was an Argentine-Italian surrealist painter, designer, illustrator, and author, known for her depictions of powerful and erotic women. Early life Fini was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Ma ...

(a former girlfriend of Castelli's from Trieste), Eugene Berman, and other artists in the force field of Surrealism. Ileana's connections enabled the couple to flee to the United States at the start of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Castelli's parents did not escape but died in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

, hounded by members of Hungary's fascist

Arrow Cross Party The Arrow Cross Party (, , abbreviated NYKP) was a far-right Hungarian ultranationalist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which formed a government in Hungary they named the Government of National Unity. They were in power from 15 October 1944 to ...

. The couple would remain married for more than 25 years, and were friends and partners even after their divorce, when Ileana married Michael Sonnabend and that couple opened its own gallery. Castelli arrived in the United States in 1941, by way of Marrakesh, Tangier, Algeciras, Vigo and Havana. He took graduate history courses in economic history at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

until volunteering for the Army, serving in the intelligence service in Europe. After the liberation of France, he was sent to Bucharest as an interpreter for the Allied commission that controlled the city. As a result of Castelli's military service, he was given American citizenship. Returning to New York, Castelli took a managerial position with his father-in-law's clothing factory.

Leo Castelli Gallery

In New York, the Castellis were two of only three non-artist members (the other was dealer Charles Egan) of the Club, an influential coterie founded in 1949 that included

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning ( , ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married pa ...

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� ...

, Franz Kline, and Ad Reinhardt. Castelli's first exercise as a private dealer came through Drouin, in 1947: some hundred canvases by Kandinsky, consigned by his widow, Nina. His first American curatorial effort was the Ninth Street Show of 1951, a seminal event in the emergence of Abstract Expressionism. He soon attached himself to the pioneering gallerist

Sidney Janis Sidney Janis (July 8, 1896 – November 23, 1989) was a wealthy clothing manufacturer and art collector who opened an art gallery in New York in 1948. His gallery quickly gained prominence, for he not only exhibited work by the Abstract Expres ...

, one of the early proponents of the school. In 1957, he opened the Leo Castelli Gallery in a townhouse at 4 E. 77th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues in New York City. From the mid-1960s through the 1970s, the gallery was perhaps the most prominent commercial venue for art in the world.Daniel Grant (February 24, 2011)
Leo Castelli's Cache Of Art-History Gold
''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

''. Initially the gallery showcased European

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...

, and other European artists such as François-Xavier Lalanne. However the gallery also exhibited American

Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...

, Cy Twombly, Friedel Dzubas, and Norman Bluhm were some artists who were included in group shows. In 1958,

and

Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, draftsman, and printmaker. Considered a central figure in the development of American postwar art, he has been variously associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and ...

joined the gallery, signaling a turning away from

, towards Pop Art,

Minimalism In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

and Conceptual Art. From the early 1960s through the late 70s,

Frank Stella Frank Philip Stella (May 12, 1936 – May 4, 2024) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. He lived and worked in New York City for much of his career befor ...

, Larry Poons, Lee Bontecou,

James Rosenquist James Albert Rosenquist (November 29, 1933 – March 31, 2017) was an American artist and one of the proponents of the pop art movement. Drawing from his background working in sign painting, Rosenquist's pieces often explored the role of advert ...

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 ...

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 ...

, Robert Morris,

Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism.Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for ...

Dan Flavin Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933 – November 29, 1996) was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures. Early life and career Daniel Nicholas Flavi ...

, Cy Twombly, Ronald Davis, Ed Ruscha, Salvatore Scarpitta,

Richard Serra Richard Serra (November 2, 1938 – March 26, 2024) was an American artist known for his large-scale Abstract art, abstract sculptures made for Site-specific art, site-specific landscape, urban, and Architecture, architectural settings, a ...

Bruce Nauman Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941) is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico. Life and work ...

Lawrence Weiner Lawrence Charles Weiner (February 10, 1942December 2, 2021) was an artist born and raised in New York City. One of the central figures in the formation of Conceptual Art in the 1960s, Lawrence Weiner explored the potentials of language as a scu ...

and

Joseph Kosuth Joseph Kosuth (; born January 31, 1945) is a Hungarian-American conceptual artist, who lives in New York and Venice,

joined the stable of Castelli artists. He gave Johns, Stella and Lichtenstein their first one-man shows. Castelli opened a temporary annex, the Castelli Warehouse, on West 108th Street, with a show organized by Robert Morris, of environmental sculpture by nine artists, including Nauman, Serra, and

Eva Hesse Eva Hesse (January 11, 1936 – May 29, 1970) was a German-born American sculptor known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. She is one of the artists who ushered in the postminimal art movement in the 196 ...

. In 1971 Leo Castelli opened a downtown

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 ...

branch of the Leo Castelli Gallery at 420 West Broadway, in a building bought by the Hague Art Delivery Company and a cooperative of dealers: Castelli took the second floor; his former wife's

Sonnabend Gallery Ileana Sonnabend (née Schapira, October 29, 1914 – October 21, 2007) was a Romanian-American art dealer of 20th-century art. The Sonnabend Gallery opened in Paris in 1962 and was instrumental in making American art of the 1960s known in Europe, ...

took the third floor, and André Emmerich (later replaced by Charles Cowles) took the top floor; while John Weber, (former director of the Dwan Gallery) rented his gallery on the fourth floor. In the 1980s, Castelli opened a second larger downtown exhibition space at a 142 Greene Street also in

. He later mounted joint shows with

Mary Boone Mary Boone (born 1952) is an American art dealer and collector. As the owner and director of the Mary Boone Gallery, she played an important role in the New York art market of the 1980s. Her first two artists, Julian Schnabel and David Salle, b ...

, of

Julian Schnabel Julian Schnabel (born October 26, 1951) is an American painter and filmmaker. In the 1980s, he received international attention for his "plate paintings"—with broken ceramic plates set onto large-scale paintings. Since the 1990s, he has been a ...

, in 1981, and

David Salle David Salle (born September 28, 1952; last name pronounced "Sally") is an American Postmodern painter, printmaker, photographer, and stage designer. Salle was born in Norman, Oklahoma, and lives and works in East Hampton, New York. He earned a B ...

, in 1982. Castelli also pioneered a stipend system that was unknown in New York when he opened his gallery. He put his artists on a payroll whether or not their work sold. For this and other reasons, desertions were initially rare among his artists. When Castelli discovered Serra in 1967, for example, he offered him a guarantee of three years of monthly payments even though he did not expect to sell any of the unknown sculptor's lead-plate work in that time. Castelli also was known for spotting new talent and insisting on European exposure for his American artists, leading to Rauschenberg in 1964 becoming the first American to win the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

's international grand prize in painting. His most important clients included Peter Ludwig and Giuseppe Panza. Castelli's second wife, Antoinette Fraissex du Bost, opened Castelli Graphics, an art gallery devoted to the prints and photographs of Castelli Gallery and other artists.Antoinette Castelli, 58, Dies; President of Graphics Gallery
''New York Times'', September 4, 1987. The couple also had a son together, Jean-Christophe Castelli, but Antoinette Castelli died in 1987. In 1995 Leo Castelli married the Italian art historian Barbara Bertozzi Castelli. In 2015, Bertozzi Castelli opened a one-room satellite gallery at 1046 Madison Avenue, near 80th Street, with Robert Morris's installation ''Lead and Felt'' (1969).

Recognition

Castelli received the rosette of the

French Legion of Honor The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and civil. Currently consisting of five classes, it was ...

, allegedly in exchange for donating works by Johns to the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

. The mayor of Trieste made him the honorary director of the Revoltella Museum. In 1998, the

National Arts Club The National Arts Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and members club on Gramercy Park, Manhattan, New York City. It was founded in 1898 by Charles DeKay, an art and literary critic of the ''New York Times'', to "stimulate, foster, and promote publi ...

awarded Castelli its Centennial Medal of Honor. On this occasion,

Dennis Hopper Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010) was an American actor, filmmaker, photographer and visual artist. He was considered one of the key figures of New Hollywood. He earned prizes from the Cannes Film Festival and Venice Internatio ...

called Castelli "the godfather of the contemporary art world." In 1982 a traveling exhibit honoring the 25th anniversary of Castelli Gallery visited the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art. The Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, showed "Three Decades of Exploration: Homage to Leo Castelli", an exhibit of more than 30 works by artists discovered, shown and encouraged by Castelli in 1987. That same year, the Butler Institute of American Art presented "Leo Castelli: a tribute exhibition". In 1996,

Gagosian Gallery The Gagosian Gallery is a modern and contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most well-known artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. As of 2024, Gagosian employs 300 people at 19 exhibiti ...

mounted the exhibition "Leo Castelli: An Exhibition in Honor of His Gallery and Artists" in Beverly Hills.

Legacy

Many artists have enshrined Castelli in their works. Elaine de Kooning and

Richard Artschwager Richard Ernst Artschwager (December 26, 1923 – February 9, 2013) was an American painter, illustrator and sculptor. His work has associations with Pop Art, Conceptual art and Minimalism. Early life and art Artschwager was born in Washington, D. ...

painted his portrait, Warhol made a silkscreen of him in a jacket and tie. Frank Stella named a work after him, in 1992 he posed for the French artist Klaus Guingand who immortalized his shadow, and a sculpture by Robert Morris, ''Leo'', places a brain at the center of a target. In 1999, on the occasion of Castelli's death, ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' published a eulogy by

. In 1988, when there were no tax deductions for gifts to museums, Castelli gave one of the icons of postwar American art, Robert Rauschenberg's ''Bed'' (1955) to 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 (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

. In 1992, amid rumors that Castelli was negotiating to sell his archives to the

Getty Center The Getty Center, in Los Angeles, California, United States, is a campus of the Getty Museum and other programs of the Getty Trust. The $1.3 billion center opened to the public on December 16, 1997, and is well known for its architecture, garde ...

in Los Angeles, his collection was said to be worth some $2 million. In October 2007, Castelli's heirs – his widow, Barbara Bertozzi Castelli, and his two children, Jean-Christophe Castelli and Nina Castelli Sundell – announced the donation of the gallery's archives from 1957 through 1999 to the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

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 ...

. Castelli had been interviewed for the archive's oral-history project in 1969, 1973 and 1997. The Leo Castelli Gallery continues to operate at 18 East 77th Street in New York under the direction of his wife showing many of the same artists from the gallery's past. The Leo Award, presented annually by the Independent Curators International (ICI), is named after the late Castelli.Is Dasha Zhukova the Next Leo Castelli?
''ARTINFO'', August 7, 2012.

References

External links

Leo Castelli Gallery records, circa 1880-2000
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution *Oral History Interviews with the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution:
Oral history interview with Leo Castelli, 1969 May 14-1973 June 8
– includes audio excerpt
Oral history interview with Leo Castelli, 1969 July

Oral history interview with Leo Castelli, 1997 May 22
* Portrait by

Robert Mapplethorpe Robert Michael Mapplethorpe ( ; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female Nude (art), n ...