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18 East 79th Street
New York, NY 10075
212 734 6300

Also at:
340 Royal Poinciana Way, Suite 309
Palm Beach, FL 33480
561 283 3415
Acquavella Galleries is distinguished for its expertise in the fields of 19th, 20th and 21st century art. The gallery, founded by Nicholas Acquavella in the early 1920s, is now a three-generation, family-owned business: Bill Acquavella joined his father in 1960, Bill’s daughter Eleanor joined in 1997, and his sons Nick and Alexander joined in 2000 and 2003 respectively. The gallery first specialized in works of the Italian Renaissance and old master paintings, but Bill expanded the focus to include the masters of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism. In the late 1980s, the gallery also began dealing in postwar and contemporary art. Today, the gallery regularly exhibits works by artists such as Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Joan Miró, Fernand Léger, Paul Klee, Alberto Giacometti, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Jean Paul Riopelle, Jean Dubuffet, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Lucian Freud. On the primary market, the gallery represents Miquel Barceló, Jacob El Hanani, Damian Loeb, and Wayne Thiebaud.

For more than 90 years, Acquavella Galleries has sold major paintings and sculpture to private collectors and museums worldwide. Through its exhibitions, it has also gained a reputation for organizing shows of particular note, both loan exhibitions and for-sale shows. Among the most significant over the past several decades include The Pop Object: The Still Life Tradition in Pop Art (2013), Lucian Freud Drawings (2012), Georges Braque: Pioneer of Modernism (2011), Robert and Ethel Scull: Portrait of a Collection (2010), Picasso’s Marie-Thérèse (2008), Manolo Millares (2006), James Rosenquist: Monochromes (2005), Lucian Freud: Recent Paintings & Etchings (2004), Cézanne Watercolors (1999), Alberto Giacometti (1994), Robert Rauschenberg Drawings: 1958-1968 (1986), Lyonel Feininger (1985-1986; this exhibition traveled to The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.), Edgar Degas (1978), Claude Monet (1976), Henri Matisse (1973) and many others. In addition, each year, the gallery curates exhibitions that offer a variety of 19th and 20th century masterworks.

Michael Findlay, Philippe de Montebello, Esperanza Sobrino, and Tsutomu Takashima are the directors of Acquavella. Their combined experience represents a wide range of expertise in acquisition, appraisal and education. Business can be conducted in French, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Spanish, and English.

Acquavella is located at 18 East 79th Street in New York City, occupying a five-story French neo-classical townhouse.
Artists Represented:
Miquel Barcelo
Jacob El Hanani
Damian Loeb
Tom Sachs
Wayne Thiebaud

Works Available By:
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean (Hans) Arp
Frank Auerbach
Francis Bacon
Miquel Barceló
Pierre Bonnard
Eugene Boudin
Georges Braque
Alexander Calder
Paul Cézanne
Marc Chagall
Edgar Degas
Andre Derain
Richard Diebenkorn
Peter Doig
Jean Dubuffet
Lucio Fontana
Lucian Freud
Paul Gauguin
Alberto Giacometti
Vincent van Gogh
Arshile Gorky
Philip Guston
Eva Hesse
David Hockney
Jasper Johns
Wassily Kandinsky
Paul Klee
Franz Kline
Willem de Kooning
Fernand Léger
Roy Lichtenstein
Morris Louis
Rene Magritte
Aristide Maillol
Piero Manzoni
Brice Marden
Henri Matisse
Fausto Melotti
Manolo Millares
Joan Miró
Amedeo Modigliani
Claude Monet
Henry Moore
Claes Oldenburg
Pablo Picasso
Camille Pissarro
Jackson Pollock
Robert Rauschenberg
Odilon Redon
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Jean Paul Riopelle
Susan Rothenberg
Mark Rothko
Ed Ruscha
Egon Schiele
Georges Seurat
Paul Signac
Alfred Sisley
David Smith
Nicolas de Staël
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Cy Twombly
Maurice de Vlaminck
Andy Warhol
Tom Wesselmann

 

 
Gallery exterior. Courtesy of Acquavella Galleries, Inc.


 
Past Exhibitions

Jon Joanis

Jon Joanis: Into Splendor



December 8, 2023 - December 31, 2023
Acquavella Galleries is pleased to present Jon Joanis: Into Splendor, the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, opening December 9th at its Palm Beach location. Joanis will showcase a dozen new and recent paintings, highlighting the artist's signature landscapes. Joanis’ vibrant landscapes, which he imbues with a mirage-like air, find their inspiration in the state between consciousness and sleep when the artist often experiences a wave of hypnagogic visions. Characterized by images and sensations that appear in rapid succession, the phenomena manifests within his mind’s eye as Joanis drifts into sleep, having encountered these visions since he was a child. These experiences, which the artist describes as visual thoughts accompanied by textural, tactile sensations, are essential to his process where he externalizes the psychic realm into his landscapes, teetering between the imagined and the observed. The resulting artworks explore the interactions between the immediacy of sensory experience and the organization of such details within memory. Color is essential to Joanis’ practice. Departing from realism, the artist’s choice of palette come from silent observations that pull the fantastical into the mundane: brake lights reflecting off of pavement and beams of sunlight refracting across cacti are among the seemingly quotidian moments that, in the artist’s hand, become sensationally exciting. Joanis’ manipulation of paint’s materiality allows for wide variance in texture and atmosphere. Working with acrylic and wax pigments, Joanis infuses the media with flattening agents, creating bonds between layers with unique textural qualities. The layering the artist implores is akin to the process of silk-screen printing, capitalizing on overlapping textures and the plasticity between layered paints. Joanis began his training at a young age when he apprenticed for Montreal-based artist Stanley Cosgrove, working his way into the studio by mowing* the artist’s lawn. Joanis would continue his formal training enrolling in a fine arts program at a nearby college all the while working at various jobs. Through a multitude of creative pursuits throughout his career, the artist continued to bolster his skills in fabrication, design, and painting. Working in smaller formats, Joanis experimented with different supports and media within his works, slowly developing his unique, self-taught artistic language. Simultaneously working as a jazz guitarist (“my other job,” as described by the artist) Joanis reconciles the two disparate artistic outlets, stating that, for him, the processes require different skill sets, yet his underlying philosophy for both remains constant. The artist’s rich paintings of landscapes are experiences that encompass the entire sensory system, reveling in the minute intricacies of perception. Joanis welcomes his viewer through his compositions which organize memory, sight, and sensation into textural and color-filled observations. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue featuring a poem titled “A Jazz Aria for the World for Jon Joanis” by Yesenia Montilla.

Miquel Barceló, Billy Al Bengston, Tom Friedman, Daniel Heidkamp, Jean Paul Riopelle, Tom Sachs, Makoto Saito, and Nicole Wittenberg

VIVID



June 1, 2023 - June 30, 2023
BILLY AL BENGSTON Cairo, 1985 Acrylic on canvas 36 x 36 in (91.4 x 91.4 cm)

Makoto Saito

Makoto Saito: in Time E.H.



April 14, 2023 - May 28, 2023
An exhibition of new paintings by the Japanese painter Makoto Saito inspired by the work of Edward Hopper.

Daniel Heidkamp

Daniel Heidkamp: Tempo



March 10, 2023 - April 9, 2023
Acquavella presents Daniel Heidkamp’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, Tempo, featuring a new body of paintings that originate from the artist’s travels to Italy. Heidkamp’s richly colored, imaginative scenes are rooted in his ongoing explorations and deconstructions of art historical traditions and the genre of landscape painting. The show is on view March 10 through April 9, 2023, at Acquavella’s Palm Beach location. Heidkamp travels extensively to source the inspiration for his paintings, from varied locations such as the south of France to Hudson, New York. To create his works, the artist begins by seeking out locales that are viewed as centers for artistic production and have drawn in artists to create work for centuries. In Tempo, Heidkamp’s newest body of work comes from his travels in 2022 throughout Italy, communing with a rich history of art ranging across the Renaissance, the Baroque, and Ancient Rome. Working from plein-air studies of these hypothesized locales, Heidkamp recreates the landscapes in his studio. The paintings, in their vivid depictions of light, color, and atmosphere, extend across multiple periods of time, referencing Heidkamp’s in-depth studies of the artists who painted the region before him and his own examinations of the landscape.

Tom Sachs

Tom Sachs: Spaceships



February 10, 2023 - March 5, 2023
An exhibition of new paintings and sculptures by Tom Sachs.

less: minimalism in the 1960s



February 1, 2023 - March 10, 2023
An exhibition featuring sculptural works by nineteen American artists: Carl Andre, Richard Artschwager, Larry Bell, Ronald Bladen, Judy Chicago, Dan Flavin, Robert Grosvenor, Eva Hesse, Douglas Huebler, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Walter De Maria, John McCracken, Robert Morris, Fred Sandback, Tony Smith, Robert Smithson, Anne Truitt, and Jackie Winsor.

From Cézanne to Rosenquist



January 14, 2023 - February 5, 2023
An exhibition featuring paintings and sculptures by Alexander Calder, Paul Cézanne, Giorgio de Chirico, Jean Dubuffet, Lucio Fontana, Tom Friedman, Alberto Giacometti, Ellsworth Kelly, Henri Laurens, Damian Loeb, Henri Matisse, Beatriz Milhazes, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, James Rosenquist, and Wayne Thiebaud.

Nicole Wittenberg

Nicole Wittenberg: Our Love is Here to Stay



December 17, 2022 - January 10, 2023
An exhibition of recent paintings and pastels by Nicole Wittenberg.

Tom Sachs

Tom Sachs: Spaceships



October 7, 2022 - November 26, 2022
In this exhibition, Tom Sachs questions what constitutes a spaceship, exploring objects that have the ability to move us from one state to another--not only physically, but also metaphysically and spiritually.

Miquel Barceló

Barceló's World



July 1, 2022 - September 9, 2022
Over the past four and a half decades, the Spanish artist Miquel Barceló (born 1957) has worked across a wide range of mediums, from paintings to works on paper, ceramics, and bronze sculptures to large-scale installations and performances. Despite his deep-rooted connection to Spain, Barceló draws inspiration from his time spent in varying locations, having worked in Barcelona, Portugal, Palermo, Paris, Geneva, New York, the Himalayas, and West Africa in addition to his native Mallorca. The varied terrain of his travels have influenced and shaped his work, with his art transforming as he experiences new environments around the world, from the arid deserts of Africa to the rocky landscape and underwater marine universe of the Balearic Islands. An artistic nomad, Barceló’s fascination with the natural world has inspired richly textured canvases that recall the earthly materiality of Catalan painters such as Antoni Tapies and Joan Miró, as well as compositions that study the effects of light and the ever-changing colors of the sea. Always experimenting with the materials of his art, Barceló has remained focused on the expressive qualities of his materials to explore texture, touch, and surface.

Unnatural Nature: Post-Pop Landscapes



April 21, 2022 - June 10, 2022
Acquavella Galleries is pleased to present Unnatural Nature: Post-Pop Landscapes, a group exhibition presented concurrently at both its New York City and Palm Beach locations from April 21 to June 10 and April 15 to May 25, respectively. The exhibitions are curated by Todd Bradway, editor of Landscape Painting Now: From Pop Abstraction to New Romanticism (D.A.P., 2019), and feature works by 28 contemporary artists. Artists in the New York City exhibition include Henni Alftan, Hurvin Anderson, Gideon Appah, Jules de Balincourt, Hayley Barker, Adrian Berg, Jennifer Coates, Ann Craven, Lois Dodd, Maureen Gallace, Sky Glabush, Isca Greenfield-Sanders, Daniel Heidkamp, David Hockney, Yvonne Jacquette, Jon Joanis, Yuka Kashihara, Alex Katz, Makiko Kudo, Patricia Leite, John McAllister, William Monk, Laurie Nye, Nicolas Party, Lisa Sanditz, Wayne Thiebaud, Nicole Wittenberg, and Matthew Wong.

Unnatural Nature: Post-Pop Landscapes



April 15, 2022 - May 25, 2022
Acquavella Galleries is pleased to present Unnatural Nature: Post-Pop Landscapes, a group exhibition presented concurrently at both its New York City and Palm Beach locations from April 21 to June 10 and April 15 to May 25, respectively. The exhibitions are curated by Todd Bradway, editor of Landscape Painting Now: From Pop Abstraction to New Romanticism (D.A.P., 2019), and feature works by 28 contemporary artists. Artists in the Palm Beach exhibition include Jennifer Coates, Lois Dodd, Isca Greenfield-Sanders, Daniel Heidkamp, Jon Joanis, Yuka Kashihara, Makiko Kudo, Lisa Sanditz, Wayne Thiebaud, and Nicole Wittenberg.

James Rosenquist

James Rosenquist: Painting Below Zero



March 11, 2022 - April 11, 2022
An exhibition of paintings and sculpture by James Rosenquist. © Estate of James Rosenquist / Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York

Miquel Barceló



February 5, 2022 - March 6, 2022
An exhibition of recent paintings and ceramics by Miquel Barceló.

Calder to Condo



January 8, 2022 - February 2, 2022
Featuring work by Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, George Condo, Giorgio de Chirico, Joan Miró, Larry Rivers, Tom Sachs, and Tom Wesselmann.

Katherine Bradford, Elisabeth Kley, Luke Murphy, Tyson Reeder, Rachel Eulena Williams

Tangerine



October 19, 2021 - November 21, 2021
Acquavella Galleries is pleased to present Tangerine, a group exhibition of five contemporary artists presented in collaboration with Canada, a New York artist run space, at its Palm Beach location. Tangerine features the work of contemporary artists Katherine Bradford, Elisabeth Kley, Luke Murphy, Tyson Reeder, and Rachel Eulena Williams. Ranging in age from 27-79 years, the exhibition reflects on Canada’s unique approach to blending artists of widely-ranging generations and practices. The exhibition draws its name from the tangerine - both the fruit, the color, and a Johnny Mercer jazz standard, which describes a fictional South American woman who is admired by all. Popularized in the 1942 film The Fleet’s In, the song provided a much needed bit of tropical respite during wartime. Rachel Eulena Williams’s painterly assemblages unite canvas, rope, bold pigment and other materials into vibrant, playful wall-mounted structures. Made from raw materials in her studio, the work is characterized not only by a focus on texture and material innovation, but also by its sculptural form. Evident in her work Pierced by Sunbeams, 2021, Williams employs the visual and the tactile through the draped and layered fabric, producing a sense of optimism and play. Elisabeth Kley draws her motifs from cultural ornamentation, architecture, and design sources that result in vivid, graphic patterns eliciting a variety of emotions. On view in Tangerine is Lotus and Water, 2021, a hand-built black and white ceramic vessel alongside a large-scale silk screened “painting” featuring design elements inspired by Japanese temples, Egyptian Design, the Wiener Werkstatte, and costumes from the Ballets Russes. Katherine Bradford is known for rich, washy layers of acrylic in purples, roses, and deep blues. In Pool Within a Pool, 2021, pastel figures float in a dark blue plane as a figure leaps off the diving board towards the middle of the canvas, seemingly floating above the swimmers in a light blue sky. Line Through Ladder (Fire Exchange) by Luke Murphy prompts curiosity and delight through a large, red LED panel that seems to have pierced through the floor, lifting a ladder that otherwise would have stood on its own legs. The combined effect is simultaneously ordinary yet enigmatic. Tyson Reeder is known for creating whimsical cityscapes and interiors through clashing pastel shades, layering forms and figures onto his stylized landscapes which depict everyday vistas. In Faygo and La Croix, Reeder continues to explore his fascination with landscape and color. Image: Tyson Reeder La Croix, 2021 Acrylic and paint marker on canvas 51 x 71 inches

Pablo Picasso

PICASSO: Seven Decades of Drawing



October 7, 2021 - December 3, 2021
“As soon as I set to work, [other ideas] seem to flow from the pen. To know what you want to draw, you have to begin drawing it.” - Pablo Picasso Acquavella Galleries is pleased to present PICASSO: Seven Decades of Drawing, a survey of significant drawings by painter, draftsman, sculptor, printmaker, and ceramicist, Pablo Picasso. Curated by Olivier Berggruen, the show features over 80 drawings spanning seven decades of the artist's career, including works in an array of mediums such as charcoal, crayon, colored pencil, collage, graphite, gouache, ink, pastel, and watercolor. Drawing was the foundation of Picasso’s practice throughout the many stages of his stylistic development. The son of an art teacher, Picasso began to sketch at an early age; it is said that his first word was “piz,” short for “lápiz,” the Spanish word for pencil. He began his formal training at the age of seven, quickly mastering the techniques of classical draftsmanship. Picasso’s drawings reflect the artist’s lifelong quest to innovate and experiment; they also demonstrate his virtuosic ability to switch between styles, techniques, and mediums. Guided by his intuition and innate understanding of line, in his drawings Picasso imaginatively experimented and pioneered the development of radical ideas, innovating new approaches to form and expression in the process. Several works on view provide insight into the evolution of his most influential, large-scale paintings, such as Les demoiselles d’Avignon, while others stand alone as virtuoso, independent works showcasing Picasso’s mastery of line, form, and medium. Developed in concert with his monumental paintings Les demoiselles d'Avignon [1907, The Museum of Modern Art, New York] and Les trois femmes [1908, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia], three drawings in the exhibition—Les demoiselles d'Avignon: Nu jaune (Étude) [1907, Collection of John and Gretchen Berggruen, San Francisco], Nu à genoux [1907-1908, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] and Nu debout (Étude pour 'Les trois femmes') [1907-1908, Private Collection]—illustrate Picasso’s development of the striking, geometric female figures whose fragmented forms paved the way to Cubism. The watercolors, studies of the female form in motion, mark a radical break from traditional composition and perspective in painting. These bold and confrontational depictions of form became a seminal point in the development of Cubism and modern art. One of the most recurring subjects in Picasso’s oeuvre is the tête de femme or buste de femme (the female head or bust of a woman). The subject serves not only as a motif to explore the artist’s stylistic development, but also to chronicle his personal life and relationships. The notorious lothario’s rapid and often dramatic changes of style are frequently attributed to the presence of a new love interest, the waning of an old one, or both. Numerous examples of the motif of the buste de femme abound in the exhibition, including early portraits evincing his study of archaic sculpture; fragmented, Cubist representations; more naturalistic, classicizing portraits; biomorphic Surrealist abstractions; and later, more erotic portraits. In his early drawing, Buste de femme nue (1906), a representation of his mistress and muse Fernande Olivier, Picasso fused Fernande’s striking face with his study of ancient Iberian masks and Romanesque sculpture, while Buste de femme (1907) betrays Picasso’s increasing interest in African masks, a formative influence in his development of Cubism. The evocative Tête de femme (1921), reflects the artist’s study of Classical sculpture and art history after World War I, when he was married to Olga Khoklova, while the sensual Portrait de femme endormie, III (1946), reflects Picasso’s later impassioned affair with Françoise Gilot and his spurring rivalry with Henri Matisse. Seven Decades of Drawing is supported by generous loans from The Art Institute of Chicago, The Cleveland Museum of Art; Fondation Beyeler, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Morgan Library & Museum; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso Para el Arte (FABA), Madrid. A fully illustrated hardcover catalogue will be produced for the exhibition featuring critical essays by historian and curator Olivier Berggruen and historian Christine Poggi. Image: Pablo Picasso Portrait de femme (Dora Maar) [Portrait of a Woman (Dora Maar)] 1938 Charcoal on paper 30 x 22 1/4 inches (76.2 x 56.5 cm) Private Collection © 2021 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Jacob El Hanani

Jacob El Hanani: Recent Works on Canvas



May 5, 2021 - June 18, 2021
Acquavella Galleries is pleased to present new works on canvas by American Israeli artist Jacob El Hanani. A tribute to the artist’s mastery of abstraction through his painstaking pen-and-ink drawings, this will be Acquavella’s third exhibition dedicated to the artist.

Eva Hesse / Hannah Wilke: Erotic Abstraction



May 5, 2021 - June 18, 2021
Acquavella Galleries is pleased to present Eva Hesse / Hannah Wilke: Erotic Abstraction, the first exhibition to present these two pioneering artists side by side. Curated by Eleanor Nairne of the Barbican Art Gallery in London, the show features 22 works made between 1965 and 1977, including foundational works in the history of post-Minimalist and feminist art. Image: Eva Hesse Iterate, 1967 Acrylic, cord, wood shavings, unknown modeling compound, Masonite 22 x 20 1/8 inches (55.8 x 51.1 cm) Private Collection Art © The Estate of Eva Hesse. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth

Impressionist, Modern and Postwar Masters



April 1, 2021 - May 28, 2021
Featuring work by Giacomo Balla, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gustave Caillebotte, Alexander Calder, Jean Dubuffet, James Ensor, Max Ernst, Lucio Fontana, Keith Haring, Jasper Johns, Damian Loeb, Brice Marden, Joan Miró, Georgia O'Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Richard Prince, Larry Rivers, Tom Sachs, Wayne Thiebaud, Joaquín Torres-García, and Andy Warhol.

Wayne Thiebaud



December 20, 2020 - February 20, 2021
Exhibition of paintings by Wayne Thiebaud

Tom Sachs

Tom Sachs: Handmade Paintings



November 5, 2020 - December 18, 2020

Masterworks from Cézanne to Thiebaud



November 1, 2020 - December 18, 2020
Acquavella Galleries is pleased to present Masterworks: From Cézanne to Thiebaud, a group exhibition on display in Palm Beach opening in November 2020. On view will be works by Pierre Bonnard, Gustave Caillebotte, Willem de Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Jacob El Hanani, Max Ernst, Paul Gauguin, Keith Haring, Ellsworth Kelly, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pissarro, Jackson Pollock, Richard Prince, James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, Wayne Thiebaud, Bradley Walker Tomlin, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselmann in a variety of mediums. Though the exhibition spans multiple generations and movements, the artists included share a mastery of both space and color.

Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary Masters



April 1, 2020 - May 15, 2020

Joan Miró

Miró the Sculptor: Elements of Nature



January 13, 2020 - January 29, 2020
Exhibition of twenty-three bronzes by Joan Miró.

Wang Yan Cheng



September 11, 2019 - October 18, 2019

Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud: Monumental



April 5, 2019 - May 24, 2019

James Rosenquist

James Rosenquist: His American Life



October 25, 2018 - December 7, 2018

White | Black



August 13, 2018 - September 28, 2018

The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García



April 12, 2018 - May 25, 2018

Richard Diebenkorn & Wayne Thiebaud

California Landscapes



February 1, 2018 - March 16, 2018

Afterglow



December 31, 1969 - June 28, 2024
A group show curated by Night Gallery featuring work by Sarah Awad, Hayley Barker, Olaf Breuning, Josh Callaghan, Claire Colette, Mira Dancy, JPW3, Wanda Koop, Tahnee Lonsdale, Brie Ruais, and Claire Tabouret.