NYAB Event - “Alexander the Great: The Iolas Gallery 1955-1987” Exhibition

“Alexander the Great: The Iolas Gallery 1955-1987” Exhibition

Paul Kasmin Gallery

This event has ended.

Paul Kasmin Gallery presents the exhibition Alexander the Great: The Iolas Gallery 1955-1987, which will showcase work by many major artists whose careers were defined through their work with influential 20th century art dealer Alexander Iolas. Alexander the Great is organized in collaboration with Vincent Fremont and Adrian Dannatt. A comprehensive monograph will be published at the time of the exhibition and will include a foreword by Bob Colacello, extensive interviews and essay by Adrian Dannatt, and archival material provided by The William N. Copley Estate, The Fontana Foundation, The Yves Klein Archives, The Jules Olitski Estate, The Takis Foundation, The Estate of Dorothea Tanning, and The Andy Warhol Foundation.

Iolas played a pivotal role in twentieth century art in America. He is recognized for being among the first to introduce American audiences to Surrealism, mounting Andy Warhol’s first gallery exhibition, and being an artist’s advocate who championed work according to his own tastes, rather than popular trends. Iolas was known throughout his career as a passionate art lover who built deep personal relationships and facilitated intercontinental connections among artists, gallerists, and collectors via his eponymous galleries in Athens, Geneva, Madrid, Milan, New York and Paris. The exhibition will show the breadth of movements and careers Iolas helped to shape, and will include works by Victor Brauner, Giorgio de Chiricho, William N. Copley, Joseph Cornell, Max Ernst, Lucio Fontana, Alain Jacquet, Marina Karella, Yves Klein, Les Lalanne, René Magritte, Roberto Matta, Jules Olitski, Man Ray, Martial Raysse, Ed Ruscha, Niki de Saint Phalle, Harold Stevenson, Takis, Dorothea Tanning, Paul Thek, Jean Tinguely, and Andy Warhol. Paul Kasmin Gallery is honored to represent many of the artists who worked closely with Iolas and to present this first exhibition celebrating his visionary work.

Iolas served as the director of the Hugo Gallery in New York from 1945 to 1955. A magnanimous social force from the beginning of his career, his extensive network of friends helped shape his interests and provide introductions to many of the artists Hugo exhibited. Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp introduced Iolas to William N. Copley in the late 1940s, and he went on to play a formative role in the artist’s career. Copley would later introduce the dealer to a young Ed Ruscha in 1967, who would have his first one man show in New York that same year at the Iolas Gallery.

Friendships with those artists and others developed Iolas’s passion for Surrealism – at the time a relatively unknown movement in the United States – and he went on to play a vital role in bringing it to America. Max Ernst, René Magritte, and Dorothea Tanning each had some of their earliest American showings at Hugo and will have works included in Alexander the Great. Iolas’s passion for Surrealism continued through the 1960s and 70s, beyond its vogue period in New York, one of the many examples of the independent taste that guided him throughout his career.

Media

• Painting
• Photography
• Prints

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