Holly Solomon, Adventurous Art Dealer, 68
DGH
Holly Solomon, who lived in Manhattan, an art dealer known for her
championship of the new and untried, for her spirited, high-stepping
lifestyle and for being the subject of a glamorous portrait by Andy
Warhol that made her a Pop icon like Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn
Monroe, died on Thursday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in
Manhattan, New York, at the age of 68, from complications from
pneumonia.
In its heyday, the Holly Solomon Gallery represented an eclectic mix of
talents, from the video artist Nam June Paik to William Wegman, the
painter and draftsman better known as a whimsical photographer of
Weimaraners. The gallery was especially known for nurturing, in the
1970's, the mini-movement known as Pattern and Decoration, a reaction to
the austerities of Minimalism.
"P & D" artists — among them Kim MacConnel, Brad Davis, Robert Kushner,
Ned Smyth, Valerie Jaudon and Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt — used humble
materials like plastic wrap and motifs from exotic cultures to produce
ornate, wildly patterned paintings and assemblages.
In 1969, before becoming dealers, Ms. Solomon and her husband, Horace,
opened 98 Greene Street Loft, one of the first so-called alternative
spaces in New York, where poetry readings, dance performances, concerts
and art shows took place. It lasted three years and gave very early
exposure to talents like Laurie Anderson, Robert Mapplethorpe, Mr.
Kushner and Gordon Matta-Clark.
A small, vivacious woman with silver-blond hair, Ms. Solomon was a
forceful personality who regarded her artists as part of her family.
(When she moved to a smaller apartment in 1988, a group of them
designed, decorated and made furniture for it.) A fashionista and a
voracious shopper, she was always dressed in her version of the latest,
including the quirky costume jewelry that she collected.
With Mr. Solomon, her partner in the gallery until their separation in
1988, she gave lavish soirees at their East 57th Street apartment for
hundreds of people involved — or not — in her world. Artists were always
part of the crowd. "Unlike others who invited artists to be the
entertainment," Mr. Kushner said yesterday, "the Solomons regarded us as
guests, and they fed us very well."
An early collector of Pop art, Ms. Solomon liked to refer to herself as
a "Pop princess." Her portrait was done by Mapplethorpe, Roy
Lichtenstein, Richard Artschwager, Christo, Robert Rauschenberg and, of
course, Warhol.
She was fond of relating how, for the Warhol portrait (a nine-panel work
sold at auction by Christie's last year for $2 million), she took $25 in
quarters into a photo booth and spent hours snapping herself doing
facial exercises learned as a budding actress. Two years later Warhol
produced the portrait.
The glamorous Solomon persona was tempered by a sense of fun. Mr.
Kushner, who as a young artist searched for manufacturers' cast-off
fabrics in SoHo, recalls that he was working in a local restaurant when
Ms. Solomon, already a collector of his art, appeared in a floor-length
white mink coat. Outside was her father-in-law's station wagon and a
chauffeur. "Let's go for a ride," she commanded, and soon they were
having an uproarious time digging in trash bins around SoHo.
Ms. Solomon was born Hollis Dworken in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where
her Russian-born father ran a grocery and liquor store. She attended
Vassar College but switched to Sarah Lawrence, where her interests in
acting, art and social life were more readily fulfilled. She soon met
and married Mr. Solomon, a Yale graduate working for his wealthy father,
a hairnet and bobby-pin manufacturer.
At first the two lived a proper, well-heeled Manhattan life. But Ms.
Solomon, enrolled in Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio, began to make the
rounds of Off Off Broadway theaters. With time on her hands, she took to
dropping in at art galleries and museums. Her first acquisition, a
ceramic lamp by Dan Flavin, was quickly followed by others, including a
Brillo carton by Warhol that was put to use as a coffee table.
Soon the couple had an extensive collection of Pop art, and by 1967 they
were well established on the scene. On the acting front, Ms. Solomon,
under the name Hollis Belmont, appeared in a feature-length movie, "The
Plot Against Harry," made by an independent filmmaker in 1969 (but not
released until 1989), in which she played a prostitute. In 1972 she
wrote, directed and produced "98.5," about five artists at the 98 Greene
Street Loft; it won an award at the Edinburgh Film Festival that year.
But her acting career was a failure, and she became more and more
involved with art.
In 1975, three years after the 98 Greene Street Loft had closed, the
Solomons opened their first commercial space, the Holly Solomon Gallery
at 392 West Broadway in SoHo. It was devoted to Ms. Solomon's
discoveries: young artists whose work looked beyond that of the
Pop/Minimal establishment. By 1978, after several shaky years, the
gallery was discovered by European dealers and collectors and became a
hot SoHo destination.
But in 1983 the Solomons, alarmed at SoHo's expansion and faced with a
steep rent increase, moved the gallery uptown to 724 Fifth Avenue, at
57th Street, where, though smaller, it retained its glittering presence.
In the early 1990's the gallery moved back to SoHo, at 172 Mercer
Street, where Ms. Solomon showed her regular artists like Mr. Paik and
newer additions like Izhar Patkin. After real estate and legal
difficulties, Ms. Solomon closed that gallery three years ago. Wanting
to be in on the Chelsea action, in the last few years she operated out
of an appointment-only gallery at the Chelsea Hotel.