Marian Goodman, the renowned contemporary art dealer, died on 22 January at the age of 97. Her eponymous gallery confirmed she passed peacefully of natural causes. Over a 60-year career, Goodman built a reputation for representing challenging, conceptually ambitious artists, including Gerhard Richter, Nan Goldin, Anselm Kiefer, Julie Mehretu, William Kentridge, and Nairy Baghramian. She opened her first gallery in New York in 1977 and later expanded to Paris and London, before closing the London space in 2020. In her final decade, the gallery saw high-profile departures but also added new artists and opened a Los Angeles location in 2023 and a new Tribeca space in 2024. A succession plan was announced in 2021, and the gallery is now led by partners Emily-Jane Kirwan, Rose Lord, Leslie Nolen, and Junette Teng.
Goodman's death marks the end of an era for the art world. She was a rare powerful female dealer in a male-dominated field, known for her intellectual rigor, loyalty to artists, and professional discretion. A 2004 New Yorker profile called her 'one of the most powerful and influential dealers of the 20th century.' Her gallery was among five that accounted for 30% of all solo shows at New York museums in a 2015 survey. Goodman's legacy includes fostering the careers of numerous women artists and championing northern European artists in the US. Her passing represents a significant loss to the contemporary art community, but her gallery's continued operation under new leadership ensures her influence endures.