In 2020 the LEVY Galerie will celebrate its 50th anniversary. On 30 October 1970 Thomas Levy, the father of the Berlin gallery owner Alexander Levy, opened his gallery in Hamburg Pöseldorf.
Image above: Traute and Thomas Levy, 1976 © 2020 alexander levy
Thomas Levy (*1947) was only 23 years old at the time. He was passionate for the arts – regularly visiting the city of Paris since 1965 and meeting artists as Man Ray, Paul Celan or Sonia Delaunay. He envisioned to exhibit and support artists of his generation going for art movements as surrealism, nouveau réalisme and pop art. Major gallery exhibitions as Henry Moore in 1980, where you can still see a sculpture at the green area at Moorweide, remain unforgotten. The same counts for the first Meret Oppenheim show in 1978 parallel to a presentation of works by Daniel Spoerri. He featured artists as Lyonel Feininger and Andy Warhol, furthermore realized spectacular pop art shows with Allen Jones and Mel Ramos through the years. But beyond that, he was close friends with most of his artists.
In its 50 years of gallery activity, LEVY Galerie has been successful in the international art business and has earned a first-rate reputation amongst European galleries having maintained dependencies in Paris, Madrid and Berlin. Several of the artists from the first years, LEVY is still the representative of, although, sadly, a few have passed away and the gallery is now representing their estates.
Since last year LEVY salon is situated at Hagedornstraße in Harvestehude. In the near future, an additional space will open in Berlin under the guidance of his son, Alexander Levy, who already runs successfully his own gallery in the capital city focusing on young contemporary positions. With his company ARTOMA Art and Cultural Management, established in 1994, Thomas Levy will anyway continue to conceptualize and realize international museum exhibitions and accompanying exhibition catalogues from his premises in Hamburg.
LEVY Galerie is the representative of the artists Eduardo Arroyo, Werner Berges, Johannes Hüppi, Allen Jones, Richard Lindner, Marc Lüders, Daniel Mohr, Max Neumann, C.O. Paeffgen, Mel Ramos, Daniel Spoerri, Annette Streyl, Ernesto Tatafiore and Wainer Vaccari. It also represents the estates of Meret Oppenheim and Friedrich Einhoff, in close coordination with the artists families. The artists take part in institutional solo and group shows worldwide, are represented in public as well as private collections and have received i.a. major grants and public commissions. LEVY gallery regularly participates at art fairs as ARCO, Madrid, Armory Show New York, Art Basel and Art Cologne.
DEEDS.NEWS congratulates on the 50th anniversary of the gallery and wishes Thomas Levy and his team continued success and joy in his commitment to contemporary art.