The Pace Gallery is a
contemporary and
modern art gallery with 9 locations worldwide.
It was founded in
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
by
Arne Glimcher in 1960. His son,
Marc Glimcher, is now president and CEO. Pace Gallery operates in New York, London, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Geneva, Seoul, East Hampton, Tokyo, and Palm Beach.
The gallery is named after Glimcher's father's nickname, "Pacey".
[Kelly Crow (August 26, 2011)]
Keeping Pace
''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 ...
''. It moved to
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
in 1963.
Main business
In 1960, at the age of 22, Arnold (Arne) Glimcher founded The Pace Gallery in Boston, running it with his wife, Milly, and his mother, Eva. In 1963, Glimcher partnered with Fred Mueller to bring the gallery to New York, where it opened a location on East 57th Street with the help of
Ivan Karp, a close friend of Glimcher's. In 1965, Glimcher closed the Boston gallery and permanently moved his family to New York. Three years later, the gallery moved to its long-time location at 32 East 57th Street.
After the Pace Gallery closed its Boston location in 1963, Eva Glimcher maintained a branch of the Pace Gallery in
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus (, ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Ohio, most populous city of the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 United States census, 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the List of United States ...
, located downtown on Broad Street, from 1965 to 1982. After her death, the branch closed.
In the 1960s, Glimcher and
Irving Blum briefly operated a Pace outpost on
La Cienega Boulevard in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
.
[ Christopher Knight (June 22, 1999)]
PaceWildenstein to End Its Beverly Hills Exhibition Program
''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 1995 to 1999, PaceWildenstein operated a gallery in
Beverly Hills, designed by architect
Charles Gwathmey.
[Zoë Lescaze (March 20, 2014)]
Pace Gallery Pops Up in Silicon Valley
'' New York Observer''.
From 2008 until 2019, PaceWildenstein – and later Pace – maintained a space gallery in the
Factory 798 District of
Beijing
Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
, China; it was the first major Manhattan art gallery with a presence in the city. It opened in 2008 to coincide with the
Summer Olympics in the city.
[Barbara Pollack (July 8, 2019)]
Pace Gallery Closes Beijing Branch—Arne Glimcher: ‘It’s Impossible to Do Business in Mainland China Right Now’
'' ARTnews''. Under the direction of its president, Leng Lin, Pace Beijing showed a mixture of American, European, and Asian artists.
From 2012 to 2020, Pace occupied the west wing of the
Royal Academy of Arts's
6 Burlington Gardens building in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, beginning with an exhibition that juxtaposed late paintings by
Mark Rothko with photographs by
Hiroshi Sugimoto.
In April 2014, Pace used the former
Tesla Motors building in
Menlo Park, California, as a temporary exhibition space.
It later operated a permanent gallery in downtown Palo Alto from 2016 to 2022.
Also in 2014, Pace operated a temporary space in
Chesa Büsin, a historic 12th-century house in
Zuoz, Switzerland. In 2018, it opened a permanent gallery in
Geneva
Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...
.
Pace opened its first space in Seoul – a gallery – in 2017 before moving to an space in the city's
Hannam-dong district, designed by
Minsuk Cho.
[Andrew Russeth (1 September 2022)]
Pace Gallery Can’t Stop Expanding in Seoul, Where It Has Upgraded in High Style
'' ARTnews''.
In 2019, Pace opened a new space in New York's Chelsea district, designed by
Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture, spanning eight stories across — of which are outdoor exhibition space. In addition to exhibitions, the building features Pace Live, a multidisciplinary music, dance, film and conversation program with a full-time curatorial director at the helm.
In 2020, Pace opened a temporary exhibition space in
East Hampton Village.
In 2021, Pace relocated its London outpost to 4 Hanover Square in Mayfair, the former home of the now-defunct
Blain Southern gallery, and enlisted
Jamie Fobert to renovate the space.
In June 2022, Pace Gallery partnered with the
NFT platform Art Blocks, with the intention of each organization giving access to each other's collectors bases.
In December 2022, Samanthe Rubell was named President of Pace Gallery, and a “Round Table, consisting of the gallery’s 10 most senior directors," was formed to formalize the gallery's structure.
In 2022, Pace partnered with Osulloc to create a café in Seoul, with artwork by Kohei Nawa.
Other activities
Pace Verso
In November 2021, Pace launched their custom-built NFT platform with drops from Lucas Samaras's ''XYZ'' series.
Pace Wildenstein
From 1993 to 2010, Pace operated jointly with
Wildenstein & Co., a gallery specializing in old master paintings, as PaceWildenstein. In 1993, after sales had slowed following the art-market crash of 1990, Arne Glimcher agreed to take up
Daniel Wildenstein's long-standing merger offer; by 2010, the Glimcher family paid $100 million to buy back the Wildensteins' 49 percent share in Pace's assets, including an inventory of several thousand paintings.
Pace/MacGill
Pace is a partner in the Pace/MacGill, which specializes in photographs and is run by
Peter MacGill.
[Philip Gefter (December 3, 2006)]
'What’s New in Photography: Anything but Photos'
''The New York Times''. From 1983 until 2019, Pace/MacGill maintained its standalone space at 32 East 57th Street before consolidating with Pace's headquarters at 540 West 25th Street.
Pace Prints
Founded in 1968, Pace Prints (Pace Editions, Inc.) on East 57th Street was sold in 2024. Pace Prints operated Pace African & Oceanic Art (formerly Pace Primitive) between 1971 and 2024; it was first located in New York’s Upper East Side neighborhood before moving moved to a Chelsea location in 2022.
Publishing
Over the course of its first 50 years, Pace was involved in releasing some 450 catalogs for its shows and artists. In January 2009, PaceWildenstein announced plans for an independent publishing company called Artifex Press, dedicated to creating online artists'
catalogs raisonnés. In 2015, the company launched a unit specifically for digital catalogs raisonnés.
Controversy
In 2016, London art dealer
James Mayor filed a lawsuit against Arne Glimcher and the Agnes Martin catalog raisonné committee, arguing that they had hurt the value of 13 works of Martin he sold after they decided not to include them in their catalog.
[Claire Selvin (April 6, 2018)]
Dismissing Suit Against Agnes Martin Catalogue Raisonné Committee, Judge Bolsters Embattled Art-Authentication Field
'' ARTnews''. The
New York Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the superior court in the Judiciary of New York. It is vested with unlimited civil and criminal jurisdiction, although in many counties outside New York City it acts primarily as a court of civil ju ...
dismissed the lawsuit in 2018.
In 2017, the
CBRE Group alleged that Pace had failed to pay them over $3 million in commissions for advising the gallery during negotiations to redevelop the gallery's flagship space at 540 West 25th Street with the building's owner, Weinberg Properties (WP). By 2022, a
jury brokerage awarded CBRE $6.3 million in damages.
In 2020, an investigation by Artnet News revealed allegations that two presidents at Pace, Douglas Baxter, and Susan Dunne, had physically and verbally abused employees for nearly two decades. Former employees said that Baxter had thrown a phone at one employee's head, and an audio recording revealed him telling the Parrish Art Museum's director that a woman who accused Chuck Close of sexual misconduct "should go live in Puerto Rico and be a hurricane victim, or starve in Haiti or Ethiopia, or be a bomb victim in Aleppo." The gallery launched an investigation into the presidents' conduct and ultimately parted ways with both employees. Dunne moved to work at David Zwirner; however, Pace retained Baxter as an advisor. The company then restructured its leadership.
In 2022, Pace Gallery filed a lawsuit in the New York Supreme Court over a fake
Georges Seurat drawing purchased for $2 million from a man purporting to be Seurat's descendant.
In May 2022, days before a
Louise Nevelson sculpture was scheduled to hit the
Sotheby’s auction block, Glimcher declared the work to be inauthentic.
Consequently, the Hardie Beloff estate, who consigned the piece to Sotheby’s, filed a lawsuit in the
US District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in April 2024, accusing Pace of purposefully forgoing the sale to protect its control over Nevelson’s market.
References
External links
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{{Authority control
Art museums and galleries in Manhattan
Art museums and galleries established in 1960
Contemporary art galleries in the United States
1960 establishments in Massachusetts
Arts organizations based in the San Francisco Bay Area
Art museums and galleries in Ohio
Culture of Columbus, Ohio