Cheim & Read

Cheim & Read is a contemporary art gallery founded in 1997 by Richard Read (art dealer) and Christopher Cheim in New York City. The gallery has been active in exhibiting, promoting, and selling painting, sculpture, and mixed-media works by established and mid-career artists, maintaining a program that intersects with major museum institutions, private collectors, and published scholarship. Its exhibitions and represented artists have engaged with institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and international venues including the Tate Modern and the Centre Pompidou.

History

From its founding, Cheim & Read developed relationships with collectors, curators, and critics across Chelsea, Manhattan, Upper East Side, and beyond, participating in the shift of contemporary art commerce during the late 1990s and early 2000s. The founders cultivated ties with figures associated with the New York art world such as gallerists from Pace Gallery, David Zwirner, and Gagosian Gallery while also collaborating with curators from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Brooklyn Museum. The gallery’s program often revisited historical trajectories, mounting retrospectives and thematic shows that connected artists to names like Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Frida Kahlo through exhibition essays and loaned works from collections including the Rothko Chapel and the National Gallery of Art. Cheim & Read navigated market fluctuations alongside major art fairs such as Art Basel, Frieze and The Armory Show, adapting exhibition strategies amid the 2008 financial crisis and the digital shifts that affected galleries like Hauser & Wirth and Perrotin.

Gallery and Exhibitions

Cheim & Read mounted one-person shows, group exhibitions, and curated projects that occasionally traveled to institutions such as the ICA Boston, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and university museums at Yale University and Princeton University. The gallery produced catalogues and contributed to monographic scholarship alongside publishers like Phaidon Press and Thames & Hudson, working with writers affiliated with the New York Times, Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, and Frieze Magazine. Exhibition programming has referenced historical exhibitions at the MOMA PS1 and dialogued with biennials such as the Venice Biennale and the São Paulo Art Biennial. Cheim & Read showed works that entered permanent collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Hammer Museum.

Artists Represented

The gallery’s roster has included painters and sculptors whose careers intersect with figures like Elizabeth Murray, David Salle, Richard Tuttle, Louise Fishman, Cy Twombly, and Brice Marden. Cheim & Read represented artists spanning generations, from early-career practitioners connected to programs at Columbia University School of the Arts and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to mid-career artists exhibited alongside names such as Robert Rauschenberg and Helen Frankenthaler. The roster and collaborations often referenced estates and foundations including the Estate of Philip Guston, the Jasper Johns Foundation, and the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. Institutional loans and acquisitions sometimes linked gallery artists to retrospectives organized by curators at the Whitney Biennial and the National Academy Museum.

Critical Reception and Influence

Critics from outlets like the New Yorker, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Art in America reviewed Cheim & Read exhibitions, situating the gallery within debates about painting’s resurgence and the valuation of postwar and contemporary work. Scholarship appearing in journals such as October (journal), Artforum, and Art Journal frequently referenced artists the gallery exhibited, and curators from the Guggenheim, the Tate, and the Brooklyn Museum cited exhibitions at the gallery when assembling survey shows. Collectors with holdings in institutions including the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art acquired works shown by Cheim & Read, contributing to the gallery’s influence on private and museum collections. Debates in the press compared the gallery’s curatorial choices to those of contemporaries like Matthew Marks Gallery and Lehmann Maupin.

Business Practices and Expansion

Cheim & Read operated as a commercial gallery engaging with international fairs and private sales, developing secondary-market relationships and working with estates and foundations for authentication and consignments. The gallery negotiated loans and sales that intersected with auction houses such as Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips while collaborating with art advisors connected to collector networks and family foundations. Over time, Cheim & Read expanded its physical presence within Manhattan and participated in global markets through partnerships in London, Paris, and Hong Kong art fairs, aligning practices with trends at galleries like Marian Goodman Gallery and Lisson Gallery. The gallery’s operations included publishing exhibition catalogues, coordinating shipping and conservation with institutions such as the Getty Conservation Institute and working with legal frameworks involving intellectual property and estate law through counsel associated with firms advising museums and dealers.

Category:Art galleries in New York City