Post-war art titan Marlborough Gallery to close after 80 years in business

After nearly 80 years, Marlborough Gallery—one of the world’s leading dealerships in post-war art—today announced that it will close its galleries in New York, London, Madrid and Barcelona following a period of leadership turmoil.

From June, the gallery will no longer present exhibitions or represent artists and estates in the primary art market. The firm currently employs 52 people globally; some of the team will stay on to ensure that consignments are returned and the inventory is sold, though most are facing redundancy.

The firm’s inventory, assembled over decades, is reportedly estimated at more than 15,000 works and rumoured to be valued at around $250m. It will be sold off over the coming months and years, with a portion of sales going to non-profit institutions that support artists, according to an official statement.

Marlborough Gallery was founded in London in 1946 by Frank Lloyd, a Jewish immigrant, in partnership with Harry Fischer, an expatriate Austrian rare books dealer whom Lloyd had met in the British military. The pair were joined by David Somerset, who later became Duke of Beaufort. Through Lloyd’s contacts, the gallery quickly made a name representing many of the UK’s most important post-war artists, including Francis Bacon, Henry Moore, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach and Barbara Hepworth. In 1963, the gallery opened in New York, where it became a home for the work of Abstract Expressionists including Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Motherwell, David Smith and Clyfford Still, as well as the estates of Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock and Ad Reinhardt, among others.

Leadership issues and lawsuits

In recent years, the gallery has encountered leadership issues as well as some financial difficulties, though profitability appears not to be a major issue. In June 2020, it was reported that the gallery was shutting its New York operations over a family feud which pitted Gilbert Lloyd, the son of Frank Lloyd (who Anglicised his name from Levai), against Frank’s nephew, Pierre Levai, who ran the New York gallery for several decades, and his son, Max Levai, who took on his father’s role in 2019 but was ousted as president in 2020. Both parties filed lawsuits, which revealed that the business reportedly lost $18.7m between 2013 and 2019. 

Court filings also showed how ambitious expansion plans involving purchasing the former Cheim & Reid building next door in New York were vetoed by the gallery’s board. The new space had been due to open in autumn 2020 as part of a rebranding initiative.

Marlborough Gallery confirmed that the lawsuits were settled to the satisfaction of all parties, and the existing New York space remained open. According to a spokesperson for the gallery, the family issues “were resolved” and have “nothing to do with this decision to wind down the business”. The main reason for the closure, the spokesperson adds, is that “it is not possible for an outside board to manage a gallery, a business that relies on personal relationships with artists”. No heirs of Frank Lloyd are currently employed at Marlborough Gallery. 

According to UK Companies House filings published on 5 January, the London gallery’s turnover dropped 35% from £11.7m to £7.7m in 2022, while gross profit fell by 24% following the departure of three directors in May 2022 and a “major contracted artist”, likely to be Paula Rego who left for Victoria Miro in October 2020. The gallery “continued to incur losses during 2023”, the accounts state.

The three directors who left were Frankie Rossi, Geoffrey Parton and John Erle-Drax, while Mary Miller resigned in August 2022. The filings reported that the company was, at that time, “facing significant uncertainty concerning the future ownership of the gallery”.

At the time the audit was published, the London gallery had assets of around £7m, of which £5.2m was stock and £1.8m was liquid assets. The gallery’s parent company, the Bahama-based Marlborough International Fine Art Company, loaned the London firm a total of £1.5m in 2023. During that time, the accounts reveal, the parent company had also “entered into a period of negotiation in relation to a potential sale of the company’s assets and its underlying trade”, though no deal had been reached at the time the accounts were signed in December 2023. Marlborough International Fine Art Company is owned by a group of trusts established in South Dakota and managed by Hermes Trust Company, a registered private trust company based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Another entity in the group of trusts, Scandia Holding Establishment, owns the gallery’s Albermarle Street premises, which it currently rents to Marlborough Gallery for £582,000 a year, according to the Companies House filings. That lease runs until 2028. The gallery or its parent company owns the properties in Chelsea in New York City and in Madrid, as well as warehouses in Spain and New York. All buildings are being sold in due course; the gallery declined to give a figure for their total value.