Beloved Portraitist Henry Taylor Is the Latest Artist to Be Lured in by Mega-Gallery Hauser & Wirth

Henry Taylor, the Los Angeles-based painter adored by curators
and critics alike, is the latest artist to join Hauser & Wirth’s
rapidly expanding roster.

The artist—who was rumored to have been pursued by a number of
top galleries—will continue to work with his longtime Los
Angeles-based dealer, Blum & Poe.

“After an incredibly fruitful 10 years of success together, Blum
& Poe is pleased, going forward, to continue to do great work
alongside Hauser & Wirth,” the gallery’s co-founder, Tim Blum, said
in a statement
to ARTnews, which first published the news. (A
spokesperson for Hauser & Wirth confirmed the new arrangement to
Artnet News.)

Taylor often focuses on African American subjects ranging from
prominent industry figures in the art world, to celebrities like
Miles Davis and Cecily Tyson, to victims of police violence. He is
as likely to seek out a subject in the street as he is at a gallery
or art fair. (Lucky visitors to his studio are also asked,
impromptu, to pose.)

“First of all, I love other people,” he said in a 2017 interview
with Cultured magazine. “I love to meet them, and
the fact I can just paint them.”

Born in 1958 in California to a commercial painter father and a
housekeeper mother, Taylor worked for 10 years as a psychiatric
technician at the Camarillo State Mental Hospital, where he
painted portraits of patients as he studied for a B.F.A. at the
California Institute of the Arts.

Over the past decade, Taylor’s profile has risen steadily.
Collectors of his work include Beth Rudin DeWoody, François
Pinault, the Rubells, and Peter Brant. He was the subject of a solo
exhibition at MoMA PS1 in 2012, and his work was included in the
2017 Whitney Biennial and the 2019 Venice Biennale. The Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, is also currently planning a major
show dedicated to Taylor, according to ARTnews.

His auction record of $975,000 was set when I’ll Put a
Spell on You (2004), a layered tableau of figures
standing outside and lying indoors, sold at Sotheby’s New York
in 2018 for nearly four times its high estimate. His secondary
market has been picking up lately, with six of his top 10 auction
prices set in 2019. But Taylor’s auction prices remain relatively
in line with his private sales, which have hovered between $100,000
and $300,000 for new works, and have gone as high as $850,000 for
older material, according to recently published prices from
major art fairs.

Hauser & Wirth has been on a tear adding artists to its roster
in recent months. New additions, some of which have not been
formally announced, include George Condo, Avery Singer, and Nicole
Eisenman.

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Artist to Be Lured in by Mega-Gallery Hauser & Wirth appeared
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