Anthony d'Offay

Anthony d'Offay (born Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, 1940) is a British art dealer, he closed his gallery - Anthony d’Offay Gallery - in 2002.

Life and career

D'Offay, who was born in Sheffield to a French father,^[1] had begun dealing contemporary art in the late 1960s and with the closure of the Robert Fraser and John Kasmin galleries became one of the pre-eminent art dealers in London operating from premises in Dering Street.

The d'Offay gallery (1980 - 2002)

The Anthony d'Offay gallery opened in 1980. D'Offay was the main agent for Joseph Beuys and represented Christian Boltanski, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, Gilbert and George, Richard Long, Jeff Koons and Richard Hamilton.

The last exhibition at the Anthony d'Offay Gallery, of Bill Viola, had 50,000 visitors and helped fund Rachel Whiteread's Monument (2001) in Trafalgar Square.^[2]

In the early 1990s d'Offay moved into representing the Young British Artists including Rachel Whiteread and Richard Patterson and had a turnover of £35 million when to the surprise of the artworld it was announced in 2001 that he was closing the business. He sold the lease, and the premises are now occupied by the Haunch of Venison gallery.^[3]

Artists' rooms

In 2006, it was announced that the National Galleries of Scotland and the Tate Gallery were in talks to acquire d'Offay's art collection, then valued at over £100 million.^[4] The collection was bought "for the nation" in 2008. Although valued at £125m, it was secured for just £26.5m – what d'Offay had originally paid for it – using funding from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and The Art Fund as well as the Scottish and UK governments.^[5][6]

The collection is touring UK galleries under the name "Artist Rooms." This involves the temporary loan of groups of works, each by a single artist, for display together in a room.^[7] There are 725 works making up 50 rooms by 25 different artists.^[8]

Notes and references

External links

• D’Offay gallery website