GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE ACQUIRES MARGO LEAVIN GALLERY’S ARCHIVES

The Getty Research Institute has acquired the complete archives of Margo Leavin Gallery, which opened its doors in Los Angeles in 1970, and closed in 2013. In its forty-three years of operation, the gallery featured more than 500 exhibitions, 400 of which were solo shows.

The gallery’s archives afford extensive information on provenance, histories of installations, brochures, reviews, and photographs and slides of artists’ works. John Chamberlain, Richard Serra, Donald Judd, Jasper Johns, and John Baldessari are among those whose exhibition histories at the gallery are represented extensively in the archive. The records will be catalogued, digitized, and made available to researchers.

Said Thomas W. Gaehtgens, director of the Getty Research Institute. “Margo Leavin has been a tremendous force in the art world, profoundly shaping the Los Angeles art scene and selling, both figuratively and literally, Los Angeles art to the international art world.”

Leavin herself added that the Getty’s acquisition would enable “the legacy of the gallery and its relationships with artists, collectors, and institutions to live on in Los Angeles.”