In May 2014, the new headquarters of the Marlborough gallery in Barcelona opened its doors on Enric Granados Street, after eight years of work in the city, located in a flat near the Egyptian Museum. The new 200-meter space, designed by architects Josep Camps and Olga Felip, already responded better to the weight and prestige of this historic firm founded in London in 1946, with offices in New York, Rome, Tokyo, Madrid and other cities and a of the great contemporary references of the international art market.
The news of the closure next June of the four current Marlborough galleries, including the one in Barcelona, ??was reported by The Art Newspaper at the beginning of April and has shocked the art world. In his column in the Dinero supplement in this newspaper, Llucià Homs described the announcement as a “catastrophe for the art system” and quite rightly considered it a “double setback for Barcelona.” “Not only do we lose a good exhibition space,” he pointed out, “but we are left without a single one of the galleries that have several locations around the world.”
This closure makes me extremely sad. Marlborough has become an emblem of high quality and good taste. On its walls you could see the legacy of the titans of abstract expressionism, such as Rothko or Motherwell, and legendary photographers such as Brassai. In the last third of the 20th century he exhibited Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, René Magritte, Barbara Hepworth and Magdalena Abakanowicz.
But in addition, and during a long adverse period for that line, it also constituted a seal-refuge for the great painters who cultivated a more or less realistic figuration, from Lucien Freud to Alex Katz, from Red Grooms to Paula Rego. Visiting the New York headquarters at 545 West 25th Street always gave joy to followers of this trend.
Marlborough’s international expansion was closely linked to the figure of Pierre Levai, nephew of the founder Frank Lloyd and one of those characters full of dynamism and visionary plans. But the Marlborough board of directors fired his son and successor Max Levai in 2020, amid mutual accusations of mismanagement and failure to adapt to the new times, which has ended up leading to the current situation: the house is not going to hold any more exhibitions and leaves to represent artists.
This company with a great cultural imprint and family ownership has not been able to find a solution – or a person – that would allow the continuity of the gallery’s work. There is a fund of several thousand works that will supposedly “go on the market” along with the venues.
Marlborough entered Spain with force in 1992 with its Madrid headquarters, and soon had a privileged space at the Arco fair and magnificent sales, sometimes accompanied by a certain amount of backbiting (at one point, due to the relationship of one of its managers with an important political).
In Barcelona he started under the tutelage of Violant Porcel, who gave the position in 2017 to Mercè Ros. Both have done a very remarkable job. Of the exhibitions worthy of a museum that the Enric Granados room has housed, I would highlight that of Antonio López, a painter who had been seen very little in the Catalan capital, in 2015, with female and male nudes (one of them in a state of erection was much commented on); “a reflection on love”, in the words of the artist from La Mancha. In 2016 the “London school” was dedicated: Avidor Arikha, Frank Auerbach, R.B. Kitaj and Euan Eglow.
Spectacular was that of the veteran American hyperrealist Richard Estes in 2017: luminous New York landscapes with their characteristic games of reflections.
All of them define a “Marlborough style” that the art lover easily recognizes, and that is not easy to find. In addition, the gallery has offered samples of Catalan painters such as Julio Vaquero, Pedro Moreno Meyerhoff or Santi Moix, adding them to an incontestable list. It has leveled up the city.
I agree with Homs’ opinion: we are going to miss Marlborough very much.
