New York’s Jack Hanley Gallery Closes after 37 Years in Business

Jack Hanley Gallery, a beloved gallery based in New York, said on Tuesday night that it would close this month, marking 37 years in business.

Currently located in Tribeca, Jack Hanley Gallery first opened in Austin, Texas, in 1987 under the name Trans-Avant Garde Gallery. Jack Hanley, its founding dealer, then relocated the gallery to San Francisco in 1990 and changed its name to the current one. Briefly, during the 2000s, Hanley also ran a space in Los Angeles.

Then, in 2008, the gallery closed both Californian spaces and moved once more, this time to New York, where it remained up until the end.

“We would like to extend our deepest thanks to all of the incredible artists who have shared their artworks and visions with us over the years,” Hanley said in the emailed announcement of his gallery’s closure on Tuesday night. “They are the foundation of this gallery and community, and it has truly been a privilege to work alongside them.”

Hanley’s gallery was characterized by a risk-taking sensibility. During the ‘90s alone, his gallery offered solo shows to Zoe Leonard, Christian Marclay, Jack Pierson, Erwin Wurm, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Though all of these artists are well-known today, they were still in the very early stages of their career when Hanley showed their work, most with just a handful of one-person exhibitions to their names.

“A lot of the time I’m drawn to stuff that I want to grapple with, or don’t really understand—if I get it off the bat I’m not really that interested,” Hanley once told Artspace. “I like stuff that I need to try and sort out and see what it does to my head, that I need to spend a month with, or own.”

The gallery’s list of alumni is studded with many other famed names. Bay Area giants like Alicia McCarthy and Chris Johanson had shows with the gallery, as did unclassifiable figures such as photographer Torbjørn Rødland, sculptor Jonathan Monk, conceptual artist Tauba Auerbach, and painter Xylor Jane.

He continued to show up-and-comers in recent years, with Margaret Lee, Amy Yao, Elizabeth Jaeger, and Maia Ruth Lee all showing with the gallery. And Hanley, never one to shy away from art that was outright rejected by some, even mounted Beeple’s first-ever gallery show in 2022.

His current show for Ed Loftus is set to close on Saturday and is slated to be the gallery’s final exhibition.

Hanley’s gallery now joins a host of other New York galleries that have shuttered this year. Those galleries include David Lewis, Deli, Simone Subal, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, and Helena Anrather.