Maureen Paley (born 1953Sleeman, Elizabeth (ed.) ''The International Who's Who of Women'' (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 431. Entry on Paley available as snippet vie
here
/ref>) is the American owner of a contemporary art gallery in

Bethnal Green Bethnal Green is an area in the East End of London northeast of Charing Cross. The area emerged from the small settlement which developed around the Green, much of which survives today as Bethnal Green Gardens, beside Cambridge Heath Road. By ...

, London, where she lives. It was founded in 1984, called Interim Art during the 1990s, and renamed Maureen Paley in 2004. She exhibited

Young British Artists The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsm ...

at an early stage. Artists represented include

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...

winners

Lawrence Abu Hamdan Lawrence Abu Hamdan (born 1985, in Amman) is a contemporary artist based in Beirut. His work looks into the political effects of listening, using various kinds of audio to explore its effects on human rights and law. Because of his work with soun ...

Gillian Wearing Gillian Wearing CBE, RA (born 10 December 1963) is an English conceptual artist, one of the Young British Artists, and winner of the 1997 Turner Prize. In 2007 Wearing was elected as lifetime member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He ...

and Wolfgang Tillmans. One thing in common with many of the artists represented is their interest in addressing social issues. The gallery is located at 60 Three Colts Lane. Maureen Paley opened a space in

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th c ...

called Morena di Luna in 2017 and in 2021 opened Studio M at Rochelle School in Shoreditch.

Early life

Maureen Paley was born in New York. She attended Sarah Lawrence College, and graduated from Brown University in 1975. She emigrated to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in 1977, attending the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It o ...

from 1978–1980, where she gained an MA in photography.

1980s

In 1984, Paley began a gallery programme in her Victorian terraced house. During the late 1980s, she exhibited examples of

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic co ...

by Tim Rollins and K.O.S.,

Sarah Charlesworth Sarah Edwards Charlesworth (March 29, 1947 – June 25, 2013) was an American conceptual artist and photographer. She is considered part of The Pictures Generation, a loose-knit group of artists working in New York in the late 1970s and early ...

, Charles Ray, Mike Kelley,

Michelangelo Pistoletto Michelangelo Pistoletto (born 23 June 1933) is an Italian painter, action and object artist, and art theorist. Pistoletto is acknowledged as one of the main representatives of the Italian Arte Povera. His work mainly deals with the subject ma ...

and

Günther Förg Günther Förg (December 5, 1952 – December 5, 2013) was a German painter, graphic designer, sculptor and photographer. His abstract style was influenced by American abstract painting.

.Deepwell, Katy
New Feminist Art Criticism
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), p. 97.

1990s

In the early 1990s, the gallery presented several exhibitions made by the burgeoning group of artists that were to become known as the YBAs—including,

Henry Bond Henry Bond, FHEA (born 13 June 1966) is an English writer, photographer, and visual artist. In his ''Lacan at the Scene'' (2009), Bond made contributions to theoretical psychoanalysis and forensics. In 1990, with Sarah Lucas, Bond organised ...

Angela Bulloch Angela Bulloch (born 1966 in Rainy River, Ontario, Canada), is an artist who often works with sound and installation; she is recognised as one of the Young British Artists. Bulloch lives and works in Berlin. Life and career Bulloch studied at G ...

and

Liam Gillick Liam Gillick (born 1964, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire) is a British artist who lives and works in New York City.

.Renton, Andrew. "Museum wannabes", ''

Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

'': London, p47, 23 April 2002. "In her Hackney living room, Maureen Paley showed the Young British Artists when they were even Younger" For years she developed the careers of

and Wolfgang Tillmans."The gallery owner"
''

'', 17 December 2001. Retrieved 12 August 2010. She was called by '' Time Out'' "a true pioneer of the East End", having presented work there before it was fashionable. For almost a decade, the gallery was supported by Arts Council grants and other patronage. In September 1999, the gallery moved to Herald Street in Bethnal Green,"Gallery"
Maureen Paley. Retrieved 14 August 2010. occupying "a chic new industrial space." Paley's base in the area was a precedent for leading galleries such as White Cube and Victoria Miro to also locate in the East End."

Curated exhibitions

In 1994, Paley curated a show at

Camden Arts Centre Camden Art Centre (formerly known as Hampstead Arts Centre until 1967 and Camden Arts Centre until 2020) is a contemporary art gallery in the London Borough of Camden, England that hosts temporary exhibitions and educational outreach projects. T ...

of work by

Joseph Kosuth Joseph Kosuth (; born January 31, 1945), an American conceptual artist, lives in New York and London,

, Ad Reinhardt and Félix González-Torres. In 1995, she presented ''Wall to Wall'' featuring wall drawings by artists including Daniel Buren,

Michael Craig-Martin Sir Michael Craig-Martin (born 28 August 1941) is an Irish-born contemporary conceptual artist and painter. He is known for fostering and adopting the Young British Artists, many of whom he taught, and for his conceptual artwork, '' An Oak Tre ...

, Douglas Gordon,

Barbara Kruger Barbara Kruger (born January 26, 1945) is an American conceptual artist and collagist associated with the Pictures Generation. She is most known for her collage style that consists of black-and-white photographs, overlaid with declarative captio ...

, Sol LeWitt, and

Lawrence Weiner Lawrence Charles Weiner (February 10, 1942December 2, 2021) was an American conceptual artist. He was one of the central figures in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s. His work often took the form of typographic texts, a form of word a ...

. The National Touring Exhibitions show went to the Serpentine Gallery, London,

Southampton City Art Gallery The Southampton City Art Gallery is an art gallery in Southampton, southern England. It is located in the Civic Centre on Commercial Road. The gallery opened in 1939 with much of the initial funding from the gallery coming from two bequests, o ...

, and

Leeds City Art Gallery Leeds Art Gallery in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, is a gallery, part of the Leeds Museums & Galleries group, whose collection of 20th-century British Art was designated by the British government in 1997 as a collection "of national importance ...

. In 1996, for the Henry Moore Sculpture Trust, Paley curated ''The Cauldron'', an exhibition of work by Young British Artists— Christine Borland,

, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Steven Pippin, Georgina Starr and

. It was installed in the Trust's studio space in

Dean Clough Dean Clough in Halifax, Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England, is a group of large factory buildings built in the 1840s–60s for Crossley's Carpets, becoming one of the world's largest carpet factories (half a mile long with of floorspace) ...

, Halifax.

2000s

In 2000, Paley staged ''The Agony and the Ecstasy'', the first show of Rebecca Warren, who she met after Paley had given a talk at her art school. She said in 2001, "Being a tastemaker—someone who invents the future—requires a delicate balance. You need to be of your time—if you're too far ahead you'll be misunderstood." In 2004, the gallery's name was changed from Interim Art to Maureen Paley. In 2006, when asked why many women have been successful in contemporary art dealing, Paley said,

Art is one of the last unregulated markets. There are no male gatekeepers and you are not confined to traditional alpha-male values. That makes it very attractive to a certain type of woman with a strong personality, who wouldn't fit into a cookie-cutter working environment ..

02 wolfgang-tillmans koeln gal buchholz 120107

Paley was one of the judges of New Sensations, a competition for art students promoted by

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

and the

Saatchi Gallery The Saatchi Gallery is a London art gallery, gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, mov ...

. Jo Craven said in ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' that Paley was one of only five female gallery owners of note in London. The ''

'' included her in London's 50 most influential people in art and design in 2008 and 2009. In 2009, she was placed at 87 (from 70 the previous year) in '' ArtReview's'' art world Power 100 list.
http://www.artreview100.com/people/614/ "87. Maureen Paley"], '' ArtReview'', 2009. Retrieved 1 August 2021. The citation drew attention to the presence of gallery artists at major events, such as Rebecca Warren at the Serpentine Gallery and Wolfgang Tillmans at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

. In August 2009, reflecting on the legacy of the YBA art scene, Paley said, "The thing that came out of the YBA generation was boldness, a belief that you can do anything." In 2009, Paley was elected to the Executive Committee of the

Society of London Art Dealers The Society of London Art Dealers is an organization founded in 1932 for the promotion of dealers of fine art and antiquities in London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the ...

2010s-

In 2010, Paley was one of a group of art dealers including Sadie Coles who made up the selection committee for the

Frieze Art Fair Frieze Art Fair is an international contemporary art fair in London, New York, and Los Angeles. Frieze London takes place every October in London's Regent's Park. In the US, the fair ran on New York's Randall's Island from 2012–19 and in 2 ...

. She supports the programmes of Artists Space, Creative Industries Federation, Open School East, Serpentine Gallery, The Showroom,

Studio Voltaire Studio Voltaire is a non-profit gallery and artist studios based in Clapham, South London. The organisation focuses on contemporary arts, staging a celebrated public programme of exhibitions, performances, and live events. Studio Voltaire i ...

, and White Columns. Paley is also a patron of

, Chisenhale Gallery, ICA, London, Michael Clark Company,

South London Gallery The South London Gallery, founded 1891, is a public-funded gallery of contemporary art in Camberwell, London. Until 1992, it was known as the South London Art Gallery, and nowadays the acronym SLG is often used. Margot Heller became its direc ...

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

Artangel Artangel is a London-based arts organisation founded in 1985 by Roger Took. Directed since 1991 by James Lingwood and Michael Morris, it has commissioned and produced a string of notable site-specific works, plus several projects for TV, film, r ...

, the

Whitechapel Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fir ...

, Charleston
Peer
and Pallant House Galley, as well as a supporter of th
Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC)
The gallery also takes part in Condo, an exhibition series where host galleries collaborate and share their spaces with visiting galleries. In 2020, Paley was interviewed for the Art Agency, Partners podcast
In Other Words
'' In 2022, the gallery was listed as one of the '15 best art galleries in London.'

Artists

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Paley, Maureen American art dealers Women art dealers Businesspeople from New York City Pembroke College in Brown University alumni Living people 1953 births American expatriates in the United Kingdom Sarah Lawrence College alumni Art dealers from London