The storied Chelsea gallery Kasmin will shutter this autumn in order to transition to a new enterprise called Olney Gleason. The new gallery will be led by Kasmin president Nick Olney and senior director Eric Gleason, who have both been with Kasmin for more than a decade. They say the move is in keeping with the wishes of the gallery’s late founder, Paul Kasmin.
“We had those conversations while Paul was still alive,” Olney told Artnews, which first reported the news. “What we’re doing now aligns with those early discussions, and the estate is fully supportive.”
Kasmin was the elder son of John “Kas” Kasmin, the legendary London art dealer who gave David Hockney his first solo show. The junior Kasmin later opened up a gallery in New York, and was among the earliest dealers to migrate from Soho to Chelsea. He died after a long illness at the age of 60 in 2020. During its 35 years in operation, the gallery he founded staged more than 350 exhibitions and represented over 100 artists.
Olney Gleason will continue to work with an unspecified number of the artists and estates from Kasmin’s roster, according to a press release. Kasmin is remembered for growing the market for François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne in the US, and for taking over Lee Krasner’s estate in 2016. All three artists are still represented by the gallery. In the past five years, Kasmin has turned more toward contemporary art, snapping up artists like Diana al-Hadid and Vanessa German. It has also continued to work with the estates and representatives of historical figures, staging shows of works by the Surrealists Leonor Fini and Dorothea Tanning; last autumn, the gallery became the exclusive representative of the estate of Jackson Pollock.
Olney Gleason will establish a flagship space in Chelsea and stage an inaugural show this autumn. A representative for the new gallery would not say whether or not it will operate from Kasmin's current spaces on 10th Avenue and West 27th Street. According to Artnews, the new venture will work with around 25 artists and estates, approximately 80% of which began working with Kasmin within the past five years. More than 40 artists are listed on the Kasmin website now; the gallery representative declined to comment on which of Kasmin’s artists would follow to the new venture.
