Pilar Ordovas is an art gallery owner who founded her gallery in 2011. She exhibits and deals in 20th-century and contemporary art, presenting a programme of museum-quality shows in London and in New York. Pilar Ordovas presents three exhibitions each year in a 2,000sq ft gallery space, located in London at 25 Savile Row, designed by Thomas Croft Architects. In 2015, the gallery inaugurated its overseas presence with a large-scale sculpture exhibition of works by Spanish artist

Eduardo Chillida Eduardo Chillida Juantegui, or Eduardo Txillida Juantegi in Basque (10 January 1924 – 19 August 2002), was a Spanish Basque sculptor notable for his monumental abstract works. Early life and career Born in San Sebastián (Donostia) to Ped ...

in a double level, 10,000 sq ft space on the corner of

Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Stre ...

and 52nd St, New York. Ordovas has staged two further exhibitions in New York in the years since and her gallery has a permanent office located in the city.

Museums and institutions

From the inception of her gallery, Pilar Ordovas has worked closely with museums and institutions. The inaugural exhibition, ''Irrational Marks: Bacon and Rembrandt'', presented self-portraits by

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

alongside

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...

's small ''Self-Portrait with Beret'', which was a loan from the Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence and a painting Bacon was fascinated by. ''Painting from Life: Carracci Freud'', autumn 2012, was curated in collaboration with Dr. Xavier Bray, then Chief Curator of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, and included the loan of a painting by

Annibale Carracci Annibale Carracci (; November 3, 1560 – July 15, 1609) was an Italian painter and instructor, active in Bologna and later in Rome. Along with his brother and cousin, Annibale was one of the progenitors, if not founders of a leading strand of th ...

from their collection. In 2013, together with the

Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the St ...

, Ordovas staged ''Raw Truth: Auerbach – Rembrandt'', a joint exhibition centred around paintings and etchings by

loaned by the

in conversation with paintings by Frank Auerbach. After its display at Ordovas, London, in autumn 2013, this show went on public display at the

, Amsterdam. Pilar Ordovas has also collaborated with

PinchukArtCentre PinchukArtCentre is a private contemporary art centre, located in Kyiv with a collection of works by Ukrainian and international artists. The museum was opened on 16 September 2006 by the steel billionaire Victor Pinchuk. The mission of the Pinc ...

, Kiev, Ukraine, the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, NY, USA, the

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art The Wadsworth Atheneum is an art museum in Hartford, Connecticut. The Wadsworth is noted for its collections of European Baroque art, ancient Egyptian and Classical bronzes, French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School lands ...

, Hartford, CT, USA, and the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway.

Artists' estates

Pilar Ordovas has staged a number of exhibitions in collaboration with artists' estates. ''Calder in India'' brought together for public display for the first time nine works that the artist made in India in 1955. In 2014, Ordovas presented an exhibition entitled ''Chillida on Miró'', organized in collaboration with the families of the two artists. For ''Giacometti Smith'', in spring 2016, Ordovas worked closely with the Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation and David Smith Estate. Ordovas has also organised a number of exhibitions in collaboration with the estates of

and Lucian Freud, including the gallery's inaugural exhibition, ''Irrational Marks: Bacon and Rembrandt'', autumn 2011, ''Girl - Lucian Freud'', summer 2015, ''Self'', autumn 2014, ''Movement and Gravity: Bacon and Rodin in Dialogue'', spring 2013, ''The Big Blue'', autumn 2015 and ''London Painters'' (November 2017 - January 2018, NY; Feb - April 2018, London). Pilar Ordovas expanded to the US in 2015. Her inaugural exhibition in New York was a collaboration with the

estate. ''Chillida: Rhythm-Time-Silence'' featured works rendered in corten steel, granite and alabaster from San Sebastián, Spain, where the artist lived and worked. This was the first major exhibition of the artist's work on US soil for 25 years and introduced a new generation of art lovers and collectors to Chillida's work Following ''Chillida: Rhythm-Time- Silence'' in New York, the exhibition travelled to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri (May-December 2017), where seven works by Chillida were presented in the museum's sculpture park, among sculptures by Alexander Calder,

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...

and Claes Oldenburg.

Personal

Ordovas married

Simon Astaire Simon Jack Astaire (born 1961) is a novelist, screenwriter, media advisor, film producer. Early life Astaire is the son of stockbroker Edgar Astaire and his former wife interior designer Lesley (née Berman), who was subsequently the first wife ...

in 2018, with whom she has a daughter Paloma.

References

{{morecat, date=February 2021 Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Art gallery owners