Art: Aggressive Giant

“In at 11, have lunch, fiddle around for another hour, then take off to play golf.” Such, in the words of one of them, has traditionally been the workday of a London art gallery owner, reflecting a leisurely love of art and a commensurate distaste for commerce. Into this gentle world has come a pair of dealers whose hard work and hard sell have swiftly made their gallery, Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., the most formidable giant in the modern field. Almost without realizing it, half a dozen old-line houses have lost their best artists to Marlborough, and soon the gallery will start a big branch in Manhattan.

Marlborough opened in 1946 in three cramped basement rooms at 17 Old Bond Street, London, and now occupies those rooms plus the top three floors of a dignified new building across the street. There is a Marlborough Galleria d’Arte in Rome, and next year there will be a branch of Marlborough in Cologne. In New York carpenters and plasterers are busy converting one entire floor—all 11,000 sq. ft. of it—of an office building on 57th Street and Madison Avenue into what will be known as the Marlborough-Gerson* Gallery.

They Met on K.P. The new gallery’s founders are Austrian refugees who met one day in 1940 while doing K.P. in the British army. Frank Lloyd, 52, comes from a family of antique dealers, and Harry Fischer, a few years older, once sold rare books in Vienna. They have not only built up a vast trade in modern old masters, but have also captured some of the biggest stars of the English art world. Sculptor Henry Moore has joined them. Francis Bacon left the Hanover Gallery; Sidney Nolan quit Matthiesen; Ben Nicholson, Kenneth Armitage and Lynn Chadwick came from Gimpel Fils. Marlborough takes on almost nobody not already famous, and it guarantees fat annual income plus fringe benefits—for example, a free secretarial service.

Marlborough’s first break came in 1948 when a young art buff named David Somerset, the son of the heir presumptive to the Duke of Beaufort, joined the staff. “He’s related to half of the English aristocracy, and they entrusted him to sell their masterpieces, all blue chips,” says Harry Fischer. On their own behalf, the founders landed some handsome commissions from sales of major collections on the Continent, and they have used their capital with devastating shrewdness.

To advertise, they have put on some admirable prestige shows, such as an exhibition of Van Gogh self-portraits and a show of the works of the Bauhaus. They send out the glossiest catalogues, give the flossiest cocktail parties. What bothers their competitors is the brash commercialism with which they do all this. “I’m sorry to have to admit it,” says Lloyd’s son Gilbert, who is now on the staff, “but Marlborough is the most hated gallery in London.”

Plans for Manhattan. Some of the deserted dealers have bitter thoughts about their lost artists, generally to the effect that greedy hearts beat under those corduroy vests. “Nicholson has always been difficult,” says one. “But Gimpels suffered with him and made his reputation. Then he left without so much as a thank you.” Gimpels also nourished Lynn Chadwick along until Chadwick won the Venice Biennale prize for sculpture; soon after, when his prices began to go up, he joined Marlborough. Another dealer learned that he had lost his main meal ticket only when Marlborough phoned him about another matter and casually dropped the word.

Manhattan galleries are beginning to feel the same heat. Marlborough, which already had the Jackson Pollock estate, wooed Robert Motherwell away from Dealer Sidney Janis. A typically harsh blow has fallen on the distinguished Tibor de Nagy Gallery, which has a long record of sticking by comparatively obscure and even slow-selling artists it believes in. In 1951 Tibor de Nagy took on an unknown named Larry Rivers, who was down on his luck and needed help beyond a mere showcase. In time, Rivers became the gallery’s top star. Suddenly, while visiting Lloyd two weeks ago, de Nagy found that Rivers had gone over to Marlborough. “I turned pale,” says he. “Galleries such as ours feel we may be forced out of the field by such smart operators, who will spoil the freshness and the magic and the genius for the sake of financial success.”

A Rich Director. Even dealers who loathe the very name of Marlborough admit that the gallery has stirred up the once languid London art world and helped keep it a center of the international market. Manhattan dealers say that they do not feel the need of such stirring, think that the U.S. art market is commercial enough, but Marlborough plainly intends to move in strongly.

Last week Marlborough announced that it has an influential Manhattan director: Mrs. Cecil Blaffer Hudson of Houston, a Humble Oil heiress and art collector who recently made news by winning a bigger ($6.5 million) divorce settlement than Bobo Rockefeller. Like David Somerset in England, “Titi” (pronounced teetee) Hudson can give the U.S. Marlborough good connections with artists, Texas millionaires, and the great collections that become gallery gold mines when they are broken up.

* From Art Dealer Otto Gerson, who died last year and whose excellent stable of sculptors will remain in the new setup.