New York Magazine, Mary Boone: The New Queen of the Art Scene by Anthony Haden-Guest, April 19, 1982. Cover photograph by Larry Williams.

Mary Boone’s decision to close her galleries as she gets ready to begin serving a 30-month jail sentence for tax evasion, brings to a halt the storied reign of one of New York’s most public and successful dealers. Boone rose rapidly from gallery girl at the Bykert Gallery in the 1970s to being heralded in 1982 as “The New Queen of the Art Scene” on the cover of New York magazine.   During the years that Soho was the art center, her gallery was one of the most prominent. She later expanded into new spaces on Fifth Avenue (1996) and then to Chelsea (2000).

Boone was strategic, persuasive, and she had an eye for talent. All three of these qualities came into play when in late 1977 she launched her gallery in a tiny ground-floor space in Soho’s most prestigious building, 420 West Broadway. Her gallery was small but it was close to some of the art world’s top dealers and she was soon collaborating with her upstairs neighbor, the legendary Leo Castelli.

Julian Schnabel’s  two gallery exhibition at the Boone Gallery and Leo Castelli Gallery in 1981 was a major event that not only launched Schnabel’s career, but also brought attention to Boone’s gallery and helped publicize “neo-expressionism” as the most prominent new art style of the 80’s.   A year later in 1982 Boone and Castelli successfully coordinated exhibitions again, this time with David Salle.

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