LOUISE DEUTSCHMAN (1916–2009)
Louise Deutschman, who, in her five-decade-long career as a curator and gallery director gave Gordon Parks his first art-gallery show, died on May 10 in Manhattan, according to Roberta Smith in the New York Times.
As a four-year-old in Illinois, Deutschman packed a bag, told her parents she was leaving for Paris, and was a mile down the road before she was retrieved. In fact, her gallery career would begin in Paris—between 1960 and 1965, she was an owner of Galerie du Pont Royale.
Returning to New York, Deutschman worked as director of the Waddell Gallery from 1966 to 1973. Next she became director of the Alex Rosenberg Gallery, where she gave Parks his first exhibition in an art gallery. In 1976 she organized an exhibition of Giacometti’s work for the Sidney Janis Gallery and stayed working there until it closed in 1999.
Deutschman later collaborated with the PaceWildenstein Gallery on “The Women of Giacometti.” Based on an idea she had cherished for years, it opened in 2005 and traveled to the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. Her most recent curatorial effort was an exhibition of paintings by Françoise Gilot at the New York Studio School in 2007. At the time of her death, Deutschman had completed manuscripts on her life in Illinois and in the New York art world.
