The art world mutates faster than the human eye can take in. It resembles the fashion industry far more than it does, say, publishing or theatre or even Hollywood, which all seem gentle by comparison. It is not, then, such a great shock that the stately Marlborough Gallery, founded in 1946 in the age of high-minded modernism, has decided to call it quits after 78 years.
Marlborough comes from an age of Modern Masters, its undisputed greatness appearing to lift it above market fluctuations or changing tastes. Francis Bacon and Mark Rothko, surely the greatest artists since the second world war in figurative and abstract painting respectively, were both represented by this dealer, which exerted huge influence on both sides of the Atlantic.
It is no coincidence that despite having maintained its aura of “blue chip” eminence through the postmodernist 1980s and beyond, Marlborough is closing at a time when the very concept of artistic greatness it relied on is being questioned, the canon gleefully upturned. Not that Marlborough only dealt in dead white males. It also represented the visceral painter Paula Rego through her unfashionable years, when she was seen by some as a dreary figurative artist rather than the kick-ass icon she is now. She left in 2020 to join the much more cutting-edge Victoria Miro Gallery, which promotes her as an explicitly feminist artist alongside Chris Ofili and Grayson Perry.
Presumably one day Victoria Miro too will look old while White Cube will seem positively antediluvian. Cool gallerists in the past, such as Robert Fraser, John Kasmin or Anthony d’Offay all failed to keep up with new generations and faded away.
So perhaps the real story here is how Marlborough managed to last nearly eight decades when so many galleries have only a decade in the sun. This confirms its business model of selling apparently timeless artists was pretty effective. Even if the great Frank Auerbach has never been exactly groovy, representing him, as Marlborough did until recently, must be counted an asset.
Or is it? Will Auerbach be remembered when he’s gone? There are no longer any certainties about art surviving as the idea of greatness is relativised, not by radical academics, but the mainstream art market. Marlborough is passing into the past along with the 20th century “masters” it dealt in so prestigiously. It was a relic of a vanished world. Capitalism is merciless, art capitalism triply so.