Arne Glimcher

Glimcher was born on March 12, 1938, in Duluth, Minnesota, and raised in Boston.{{Cite web|last=James|first=McElhinney|date=January 25, 2010|title=Oral history interview with Arne (Arnold) Glimcher, 2010 Jan. 6-25|url=https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-arne-arnold-glimcher-15912|url-status=live|access-date=2021-09-14|website=Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121111085755/http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-arne-arnold-glimcher-15912 |archive-date=November 11, 2012 }} His father was a cattle rancher who owned a ranch in Minnesota. Arne was the youngest of four and was interested in art from an early age, which he developed by taking Saturday classes at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

He later graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and pursued an MFA at Boston University, where he took classes with sculptor Harold Tovish. Dissatisfied with the quality of his own art, Glimcher decided to pursue art history, hoping someday to be the director of the Museum of Modern Art.

In 1960, at age 21, Glimcher founded Pace Gallery in Boston. He named the gallery after his father, who had recently died. In the Pace's first year, Glimcher primarily showed the work of professors from his MFA program--including Lawrence Kupferman, David Berger, and Albert Alcalay--and the gallery lost money. Its first success was a show by sculptor Louise Nevelson.{{cite web |url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/pace-gallery-50th-anniversary-arne-glimcher |title=Pace Gallery 50th Anniversary: Arne Glimcher |last=Laster |first=Paul |date=July 14, 2017 |website=The Daily Beast |publisher= |access-date=August 21, 2023 |quote= }}

In 1963, Glimcher opened a second location for the gallery in New York City. Unable to compete at first with the established dealers of Pop Art, Glimcher initially represented Western sculptors such as James Turrell and Robert Irwin. He moved himself and his family to New York in 1965, closing the Boston location. Glimcher began a publishing division of the company, Pace Editions, in 1968.

In New York, Glimcher became friends with the painter Mark Rothko, who lived nearby. After the artist's death, his heirs and executors fought a decade-long legal battle known as the Rothko case with his former gallery, Marlborough Fine Art. At the case's conclusion, Rothko's heirs chose Glimcher as the new dealer for the estate.

In 1980, Glimcher sold Jasper Johns's Three Flags to the Whitney Museum of American Art for $1 million, the first time a work by a living artist had ever commanded seven figures.{{cite news |first=Kelly |last=Crow |date=August 26, 2011 |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903596904576517164002381464#articleTabs%3Darticle |title=Keeping Pace |work=The Wall Street Journal}} Glimcher also represented his former MassArt classmate Brice Marden before Marden moved to another dealer, Mary Boone. Glimcher's son Marc, who would later succeed Arne as the chairman, joined the Pace Gallery in 1985. The company bought a new large space in SoHo in 1990.

The Pace Gallery merged with another gallery, Wildenstein & Company, in 1993, combining Pace's emphasis on contemporary art with Wildenstein's emphasis on Old Master and impressionist paintings. The merged gallery was titled PaceWildenstein. However, as collecting became more specialized, the concept of "one-stop shopping" for high-end art buyers became less sustainable. The two galleries separated back to their original names in 2010. Glimcher and Wildenstein both stated that the split was "amicable".{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/arts/design/02vogel.html |title=Powerhouse Gallery Is Splitting Apart |last=Vogel |first=Carol |date=April 1, 2010 |website=The New York Times |publisher= |access-date=August 20, 2023 |quote=}}

The Pace Gallery has represented contemporary artists including Julian Schnabel, {{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/25/magazine/arteurs-big.html |title=Arteurs; Big |last=Weiss |first=Philip |date=March 25, 2011 |website=The New York Times |publisher= |access-date=August 21, 2023 |quote=}} Tara Donovan, {{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/arts/design/28kino.html |title=The Genius of Little Things |last=Kino |first=Carol |date=September 28, 2008 |website=The New York Times |publisher= |access-date=August 20, 2023 |quote=}} David Hockney, Maya Lin {{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/arts/design/maya-lins-here-and-there-at-pace-gallery.html |title=Maya Lin's New Memorial Is a City |last=Kino |first=Carol |date=April 25, 2013 |website=The New York Times |publisher= |access-date=August 20, 2023 |quote=}} and Kiki Smith. {{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/t-magazine/kiki-smith-personal-photos.html |title=Kiki Smith Shares a Glimpse Into Her World, in Photographs |last=Newell-Hanson |first=Alice |date=February 28, 2019 |website=The New York Times |publisher= |access-date=August 20, 2023 |quote=}} As of 2010, Pace also represented the estates of artists including Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Agnes Martin, Jean Dubuffet, Zhang Xiaogang, Robert Ryman, and Chuck Close. {{cite web |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903596904576517164002381464#articleTabs%3Darticle |title=Keeping Pace |last=Crow |first=Kelly |date=August 26, 2011 |website=The Wall Street Journal |publisher= |access-date=August 20, 2023 |quote=}} During Glimcher's career, he has worked with artists including Jean Dubuffet, Robert Rauschenberg, {{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/arts/design/14rauschenberg.html |title=Robert Rauschenberg, American Artist, Dies at 82 |last=Kimmelman |first=Michael |date=May 14, 2008 |website=The New York Times |publisher= |access-date=August 21, 2023 |quote=Arne Glimcher, chairman of PaceWildenstein, the Manhattan gallery that represents Mr. Rauschenberg. }} Louise Nevelson, and Lucas Samaras.

In 2022, at age 83, Glimcher opened an exhibition space in TriBeCa called Gallery 125 Newbury, named for the Pace Gallery's original address. {{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/19/arts/design/arne-glimcher-tribeca-gallery-pace.html |title=At 83, Arne Glimcher Indulges His Inner Curator |last=Loos |first=Ted |date=January 19, 2022 |website=The New York Times |publisher= |access-date=August 18, 2023 |quote=}} It opened with a show featuring the work of Smith, Samaras, Alex Da Corte, Robert Gober, and Zhang Huan.{{cite web |url= https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/09/arne-glimcher-pace-new-gallery |title=Arne Glimcher, the Art World's Original Pacemaker, Is Starting Over at 84 |last=Freeman |first=Nate |date=September 22, 2022 |website=Vanity Fair |publisher= |access-date=August 18, 2023 |quote=}}

Glimcher made his feature-film debut in a small role as an art dealer in Robert Benton's 1982 film Still of the Night. {{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/27/movies/an-art-dealer-realizes-his-hollywood-dream.html |title=An Art Dealer Realizes His Hollywood Dream |last=Grimes |first=William |date=February 27, 1992 |website=The New York Times |publisher= |access-date=August 21, 2023 |quote=}} He later served as an associate producer on Ivan Reitman's 1986 film art-theft comedy Legal Eagles, for which the writers consulted him to add verisimilitude to the script; he also choreographed Daryl Hannah's performance scene in the film. Glimcher further developed a close friendship with Hollywood power broker Michael Ovitz, one of his regular clients. He went on to produce Gorillas in the Mist, and The Good Mother, both released in 1988.

Determined to direct a film himself, Glimcher began buying the rights to novels to option to studios. After a tip from a friend, he read and bought the rights to Oscar Hijuelos's novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love before its publication. After the novel won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Glimcher began to shop it around to studios, eventually winning the backing of Universal Pictures chairman Tom Pollock for a low-budget film. It became Glimcher's directorial debut in 1992 under the shortened title The Mambo Kings{{Cite web|last=Wallach|first=Amei|title=MOVIES : 'Mambo's' King : Well-connected N.Y. art dealer Arne Glimcher is not your average first-time film director--and he doesn't take no for an answer (Page 1 of 3)|work=Los Angeles Times|date=February 23, 1992|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-02-23-ca-4953-story.html|access-date=July 28, 2018}} and received mostly positive reviews.{{Cite web|last=Passafiume|first=Andrea|title=The Mambo Kings|publisher=Turner Entertainment Networks, Inc.|work=Turner Classic Movies Film Article|url=https://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/235305|access-date=December 5, 2011}}{{Cite web|title=The Mambo Kings (1992)|publisher=Rotten Tomatoes|url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mambo_kings/?page=2&critic=columns&sortby=date&name_order=asc&view=#contentReviews| access-date=August 4, 2023}} Glimcher received an Academy Award Best Original Song nomination for the film's original song, Beautiful Maria of My Soul, {{cite web |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/willem-dafoe-wes-anderson-fete-new-yorks-pace-gallery-flagship-1239676/ |title=Willem Dafoe, Wes Anderson, The Who Fete New York's Pace Gallery Flagship |last=Van Straaten |first=Laura |date=September 13, 2019 |website=The Hollywood Reporter |publisher= |access-date=August 21, 2023 |quote=}} which was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. {{cite web |url=https://www.goldenglobes.com/film/mambo-kings |title=Mambo Kings, The |last= |first= |date= |website=Golden Globes |publisher= |access-date=August 21, 2023 |quote=}}

Glimcher later directed the 1995 film Just Cause, an adaptation of a John Katzenbach novel with Sean Connery and Laurence Fishburne in the lead roles. The film received mostly negative reviews, with a "Rotten" 26% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 31 reviews.{{cite web|url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/just_cause/|title=Just Cause|website=Rotten Tomatoes|access-date=13 December 2017}} In 1999, Glimcher directed The White River Kid which featured an ensemble cast, including Antonio Banderas from The Mambo Kings.{{cite web |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-jul-12-ca-2802-story.html |title=A Cape. A Sword. A Star? |last=Welkos |first=Robert W. |date=July 12, 1998 |website=The Los Angeles Times |publisher= |access-date=August 21, 2023 |quote=}}

In 2008, following encouragement from director Martin Scorsese, Glimcher produced and directed the documentary film Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies. It explores the connection between early Cubist work by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque and the birth of motion pictures in Paris by directors such as Auguste and Louis Lumière. {{cite web |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704717004575268874079482674 |title=Cubist Images from the Silver Screen |last= |first= |date=May 26, 2010 |website=The Wall Street Journal |publisher= |access-date=August 21, 2023 |quote=}}

Glimcher is married to Milly Cooper.{{Cite web|date=2020-11-09|title=Explore Arne Glimcher's Sprawling East Hampton Sculpture Garden|url=https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/explore-arne-glimchers-sprawling-east-hampton-sculpture-garden|access-date=2021-09-14|website=Architectural Digest|language=en-US}} They maintain residences in New York's Upper East Side and East Hampton, where their holiday home was designed by Ulrich Franzen in 1983.

{{reflist|3}}

• {{IMDb name|id=0322865|name=Arne Glimcher}}
• [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704113504575264773835005244 Cubism as Film Adaptation, The Wall Street Journal, 27 May 2010]
• [https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-arne-arnold-glimcher-15912 Oral history interview with Arne (Arnold) Glimcher, 2010 Jan. 6-25], Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

{{Arne Glimcher}}

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Category:1938 births

Category:American art dealers

Category:People from Duluth, Minnesota

Category:Massachusetts College of Art and Design alumni

Category:Boston University alumni

Category:Living people

Category:Film directors from Minnesota

Category:Film producers from Minnesota