#irving blum

[robertocustodioart]

Irving Blum and Peggy Moffitt by Dennis Hopper 1964

[doubleyouworld]

[heavyhorsehills]

[gagosiangallery]

What's the latest NOW? On November 1, Walton Ford sat down with legendary art dealer Irving Blum at Gagosian Beverly Hills to discuss his newest exhibition, "Calafia." Moderated by Gagosian's Rani Singh, the discussion launches into detailed accounts of Walton's beginnings, the centrality of literature and natural history research in his process, and guides the viewer through the large-scale watercolors on display with a particular eye to the histories and myths of California. Watch the full conversation by clicking on the link below! http://fal.cn/qSEu

[felipelima]

Ed Ruscha: Buildings and Words Now nominated for a 2017 Webby Award

i-D Interview Annotated Transcript

Written and Directed by Felipe Lima Narrated by Owen Wilson

Featuring Ed Begley Jr., Larry Bell, Billy Al Bengston, Irving Blum, Larry Gagosian, Jim Ganzer, Joe Goode, Kim Gordon, and Ed Moses.

Produced by Ways & Means Executive Producers Lana Kim, Jett Steiger Producer Rachel Nederveld

Presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles MOCA Chief Communication Officier Sarah Lloyd Stifler MOCA Communications Manager Eva Seta

Editor & Motion Graphics Matthew Miller Director of Photography Roman Koval

Researcher Lauren Skillen Sound Mixer Jacques Pienaar

Colorist Bossi Baker Sound Mixer Brent Kiser, Unbridled Sound

[art-mogul]

[artyeux]

Irving Blum & Peggy Moffitt 

Dennis Hopper | 1964

[gagosiangallery]

NOW—IN CONVERSATION: Irving Blum with Derek Blasberg

March 11, 2016 I had met Jasper Johns because he showed with Leo. I had visited Ellsworth Kelly through a friend when I worked for Knoll, so I had that relationship. However, the most rewarding way I relied on meeting new artists was through a few people I had asked to keep me abreast of what they were seeing 
in New York. I didn’t have a lot of money
 to go back and forth between New York and LA to research young artists; in fact, 
I could only do that once or twice a year. So I asked people like Dick Bellamy, who had a gallery called the Green Gallery and was a good friend, and Bill Seitz, who was a curator at The Museum of Modern Art, to make me lists of artists they liked. 
I would get all these lists and if one name appeared on both lists, I made it my business to go and see that person. That’s what lead me to Andy Warhol. —Irving Blum

DEREK BLASBERG Let’s start at the beginning. What is your earliest art memory?

IRVING BLUM After I got out of the Air Force, I worked for Knoll Associates, 
the furniture house. I had met Hans Knoll, and he offered me a job in the showroom. This was the middle of the 1950s, and an interesting thing about Knoll at that time was that they were on Madison Avenue right off of 57th Street, which is where all the art galleries in New York were back then. Sidney Janis, Betty Parsons, and Sam Kootz all had galleries there, and I would visit the exhibitions on my lunch break.

DB Just as a casual visitor?

IB Yes, but one day Mrs. Knoll came to
see me and said, “You clearly have some interest in art”—because I always had announcements on my desk—“So I’m hoping you can help me with something.” She had just received a commission 
from Connecticut General Life Insurance, and she needed art to place in some of 
the offices she was decorating. She said, “Maybe you can find whatever it is I’m looking for.” I asked what she had in mind, and she said a small painting of a certain color and so forth. That afternoon I walked over to Janis’s gallery and introduced myself, told him what I wanted, and
 he went into a storage area and brought out an Albers, which I liked. I took it
to the showroom, and Mrs. Knoll said, “Brilliant.” I began doing that more often and it ignited my interest in the art world.

DB You were her unofficial office art consultant, as it were?

IB Yes, exactly right. And I absolutely
had the feeling that there was something important going on in the New York art world at that moment, and when I began to socialize with people in the art world it was clear that they were going to do something remarkable. And then Hans Knoll died.

DB He died in a very peculiar way,
 didn’t he?

IB Yes, very odd: his Porsche was run
off the road in pre-Castro Cuba. He was
 a dynamic guy and he represented the energy behind the company, so when he died, the company became much flatter than it had been. By then I had been in New York working at Knoll for a couple of years, and I decided upon two things: first, that I wanted to open an art gallery and, second, that I missed the West Coast and wanted 
to go back to where the weather was nicer.

DB Where did you grow up?


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