Virginia Dwan (October 18, 1931 – September 5, 2022)
was an American art collector, art patron, philanthropist, and founder of the Dwan Light Sanctuary in Montezuma, New Mexico. She was the former owner and executive director of Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles (1959–1967) and Dwan Gallery

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

(1965–1971), a contemporary art gallery closely identified with the American movements of

minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

, conceptualism, and

land art Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mov ...

Early life and education

Virginia Dwan, heiress to the Minnesota-based conglomerate 3M, was born in Minneapolis. She attended the University of California at Los Angeles to study art, but then dropped out and married a medical student in Los Angeles. Michael Kimmelman (May 11, 2003)
The Forgotten Godmother Of Dia's Artists
'' New York Times''. In 1950, Dwan married psychology graduate student Peter Fischer, and one month after her 19th birthday, she gave birth to her daughter, Candace.Catherine Wagley (September 17, 2022)
Virginia Dwan, influential L.A. gallerist and risk-taking arts patron, dies
'' Los Angeles Times''. She married UCLA medical student Philippe Vadim Kondratief in 1958.

Career

Dwan leased a tiny storefront in a Spanish Mission-style building at 1091 Broxton Avenue in the Westwood section of Los Angeles in 1959. In its early years, Dwan Gallery showed some local artists, most notably Ed Kienholz, but, more significantly, it brought New York and European artists to Los Angeles, introducing them to the city and its artists. The artists she presented there included

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

, Yves Klein, Ad Reinhardt, Joan Mitchell, Franz Kline,

Matsumi Kanemitsu Matsumi "Mike" Kanemitsu (May 28, 1922- May 11, 1992) was a Japanese-American painter who was also proficient in Japanese style ''sumi'' and lithography. Kanemitsu was born to Japanese parents in Ogden, Utah on May 28, 1922. At age three, he w ...

and Philip Guston. In contrast to Ferus Gallery, Dwan was well funded.Scott Timberg (January 1, 2012)
Galleries fostered the L.A. art scene
'' Los Angeles Times''. Dwan found a bigger space in 1962, hiring art dealer John Weber, who brought in a few of his own artists and organized some shows. In June 1962, Dwan moved to the new location at 10846 Lindbrook Drive,Dawson (2007), 43 which was twice as large as her first space. The building's renovation, which was designed by Morris Verger, a student of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, was inspired by the V.C. Morris store in San Francisco designed by the latter. Dwan organized several influential exhibitions in her new space, including "My Country 'Tis of Thee", an exhibition of Pop Art held in November 1962. This show belongs to a substantial group of exhibitions in Los Angeles between 1962 and 1963 that heralded the arrival of Pop as a major artistic style in the early 1960s. Though "My Country 'Tis of Thee" focused on New York artists, it also included the work of Edward Kienholz. Another important exhibition included "Boxes" (1964), which featured box-shaped works by an international group of artists including Los Angeles sculptors Larry Bell, Tony Berlant, Edward Kienholz, Ron Miyashiro, and Ken Price. In 1965, Dwan moved to Manhattan. She opened a place on 57th Street, leaving Weber to run the gallery in Los Angeles for a few years before he joined her in New York. That gallery would exhibit minimalist and conceptual artists including Carl Andre, Michael Heizer, Kienholz, Sol LeWitt, Charles Ross and Robert Smithson. By 1969 she closed her Westwood space, which reopened as Doug Christmas' ACE Gallery. Robert Smithson's '' Spiral Jetty'' was financed in part by a US$9,000 grant from the Virginia Dwan Gallery in 1970. A 20-year lease for the site was granted for $100 annually. Dwan then began to focus on

earthworks Earthworks may refer to: Construction *Earthworks (archaeology), human-made constructions that modify the land contour * Earthworks (engineering), civil engineering works created by moving or processing quantities of soil *Earthworks (military), m ...

such as the ''35-Pole Lightning Field'' by Walter De Maria (the precursor to his ''

Lightning Field ''The Lightning Field'' (1977) is a land art work in Catron County, New Mexico, by sculptor Walter De Maria. It consists of 400 stainless steel poles with solid, pointed tips, arranged in a rectangular 1 mile × 1 kilometre grid array. It is mai ...

'') and Ross's ''

Star Axis ''Star Axis'' is an earthwork built by American sculptor Charles Ross (artist), Charles Ross to observe the stars, which is considered to be a defining example of land art. The roughly eleven-story architectonic sculpture and naked-eye observat ...

'', a naked eye observatory in New Mexico whose construction she supported from its conception in 1971.Wagley, Catherine
"Virginia Dwan, influential L.A. gallerist and risk-taking arts patron, dies,"
''Los Angeles Times'', September 17, 2022. Retrieved September 20, 2022. She also purchased the land for Michael Heizer's ''Double Negative''.

Legacy

In 1965, the Virginia Dwan Collection, featuring artists like Willem de Kooning (''Untitled'', 1961), Franz Kline,

, Claes Oldenburg, and Lee Bontecou, was exhibited at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dwan later gave many artworks to various museums in the United States. Already in 1969, she presented the Pasadena Art Museum (present day Norton Simon Museum) with '' L.H.O.O.Q. or La Joconde'' (1964) by Marcel Duchamp. In 1985, Dwan donated Michael Heizer's project ''

Double Negative A double negative is a construction occurring when two forms of grammatical negation are used in the same sentence. Multiple negation is the more general term referring to the occurrence of more than one negative in a clause. In some languages, ...

'' (1969), two 100-foot-long cuts facing each other across the curving rim of Mormon Mesa (Clark County, Nevada), to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA). In 1996, she gave Heizer's ''Actual Size: Munich Rotary'' (1970), six projected photographic images, each wide and high, to the Whitney Museum of American Art.Carol Vogel (October 12, 2007)
With Altria Leaving, Whitney Loses Branch
'' New York Times''. Dwan conceived and supported construction of the ''Dwan Light Sanctuary'' (1996), a structural artwork and secular space in Montezuma, New Mexico built in collaboration with architect Laban Wingert and Charles Ross, who contributed the space's solar spectrum artwork.Rizzo, Angie
"Holy Architecture for Earthly Devotion,"
''Hyperallergic'', January 28, 2020. Retrieved January 27, 2022.Eddy, Jordan
"Field Report: Las Vegas, NM,"
''Southwest Contemporary'', August 28, 2018. Retrieved January 27, 2022. Other works were given to other museums, including: the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

; the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University; the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; and the Des Moines Art Center. In 2013, Dwan gave ''A Nonsite, Pine Barrens, New Jersey'' (1968) by Robert Smithson, an indoor work containing substances from an outdoor site elsewhere; and ''Glass Stratum'' (1967) by Timothy McCormack, made up of 37 sheets of half-inch-thick glass layered atop one another, to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. ;Collection pledged to National Gallery Dwan's private collection was pledged as a promised gift to the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

in 2013.The Washington Post.com: "National Gallery of Art to get 250 works from Virginia Dwan Collection"
by Katherine Boyle September 26, 2013.
by Carol Vogel, 26 September 2013. The 250 artworks include paintings, sculptures, drawings, and photographs from the late 1950s through the 1970s. It includes works by 52 modern artists, including: Carl Andre,

Arman Arman (November 17, 1928 – October 22, 2005) was a French-born American artist. Born Armand Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman was a painter who moved from using objects for the ink or paint traces they leave (''cachets'', ''allures d'objet'') to ...

, Walter de Maria, Dan Flavin, Michael Heizer, Yves Klein, Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin,

Martial Raysse Martial Raysse (born 12 February 1936 in Golfe-Juan) is a French artist and actor. He lives in Issigeac, France. He holds the record for the most expensive work sold by a living French artist. Biography Raysse was born in a ceramicist family in ...

, Ad Reinhardt, Larry Rivers, Fred Sandback, Robert Smithson, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely. The works have gone on display for the exhibition, “From Los Angeles to New York: The Dwan Gallery 1959-1971”, National Gallery (2016−2017), and traveled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) (2017).National Gallery of Art: "Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959–1971"
— ''exhibit at National Gallery (2016−2017) + LACMA (2017) ''. ;Archives The Dwan Gallery Archives are held at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. and at the

Center for Curatorial Studies Founded in 1990, the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard) is an exhibition and research center dedicated to the study of art and exhibition practices from the 1960s to the present. The Center initiated its graduate program in 1994 ...

at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

References

Sources

* Dawson, Jessica (2007). "Virginia Dwan Los Angeles". ''Archives of American Art Journal'' 46 (3/4).

External links

National Gallery of Art: Virginia Dwan CollectionSmithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art: Dwan Gallery (Los Angeles, California + New York, New York) Archives
— ''homepage for collection's digitized records''.
Smithsonian Institution: Oral history interview with Virginia Dwan (1984)Dwan Gallery publications and ephemera, 1960-1971
finding aid, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession No. 2012.M.37. The Collection consists of exhibition announcements, posters and exhibition catalogs documenting the exhibitions held at Virginia Dwan's influential galleries in Los Angeles and New York. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dwan, Virginia 1931 births 2022 deaths American art collectors American art dealers American women art dealers American women art collectors Philanthropists from California Philanthropists from New York (state) American contemporary art

Dwan Gallery Dwan is both a surname and a given name. Notable people with the name include: *Allan Dwan (1885–1981), pioneering Canadian-born American film director, producer and screenwriter *Dorothy Dwan (1906–1981), American actress of the 1920s *Jack Dw ...

Art gallery owners