De Nagy, Tibor

(B. 25 April 1908 in Debrecen, Hungary; d. 24 December 1993 in New York City), economist, banker, and art dealer whose Manhattan art gallery represented some of the most important American artists of the 1950s.

De Nagy was born in the city of Debrecen, approximately 120 miles west of Budapest. At the time of de Nagy’s birth, Debrecen was undergoing tremendous economic growth and it ranked as one of the top business centers in Hungary, after Nagyvárad and Budapest. Well educated and known for his “old world” courtly manner, de Nagy studied economics at University of Frankfurt in Germany and at Kings College, at Cambridge University in England during the 1920s. In 1930 he began his career when he joined the National Bank of Hungary in Budapest.

De Nagy’s stepfather, a prominent judge and an avid collector of modern art and rare books, began taking de Nagy to art galleries in Budapest at the age of five. De Nagy started building his own collection in the 1930s, concentrating on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Flemish and Italian paintings. De Nagy reflected on those years, saying, “I was a spoiled brat; I loved to own things, to surround myself with luxury.”

Hungary, split apart after World War I, suffered severely during the Great Depression. Tragically, Hungary was occupied by the Nazis during World War II and it became a battleground between the Red Army and Hitler’s armed forces. By the end of the war, nearly half of Debrecen was in ruins due to extensive Allied bombing, and de Nagy’s entire art collection had been destroyed by a British airplane that crashed into his villa. After Germany’s defeat, de Nagy, who had sought refuge in Poland, returned to Hungary and began to help rebuild its banking system, but he was imprisoned by the Soviet Secret Police in 1946. Allegedly, he escaped in 1948, with a little money raised from the sale of family jewelry. He stayed briefly in London and then joined his daughter and ex-wife, Agnes Axcel (whom he had divorced in 1946), in New York City.

In 1949, while looking for a banking position, de Nagy befriended John Bernard Meyers, an art editor for View magazine and a puppeteer. Meyers convinced him to invest in a marionette company. The Tibor de Nagy Marionette Company was short-lived and unsuccessful, but through the business de Nagy met the abstract expressionist artists Jackson Pollack, William de Kooning, and Franz Kline, all of whom were enthusiastic supporters of the company. These artists encouraged de Nagy and Meyers to start an art gallery. Located on East Fifty-third Street in Manhattan, the new gallery opened in 1950. Finances were difficult during the first year, but the future was secured when the English collector, poet, and artist Dwight Ripley agreed to pay the rent for the next six years.

In de Nagy’s words, the gallery was “designed for the special tangibility that is the love of looking.” With John Meyers assuming directorship, the gallery began operating just as American abstract expressionism was beginning to make an international impact. The Tibor de Nagy Gallery earned a strong reputation for its willingness to represent a diverse group of artists, both figurative and abstract. Indeed, a number of second-generation abstract expressionist artists had their first shows at the gallery. Among them was the action painter Grace Hartigan, who had her first one-person show at the gallery in 1951. For the show, Hartigan chose to call herself “George Hartigan” with the hope that as a man she would attract more notice. It worked, and the first painting the gallery sold was a Hartigan that went for $75. Hartigan continued to exhibit her work at the gallery throughout the 1950s. Other important abstract artists who had their first shows at the gallery in the 1950s were Alfred Leslie, Kenneth Noland, and Helen Frankenthaler.

Among the representational painters who began their careers at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery were the impressionistic painter Fairfield Porter, who was a mainstay at the gallery for over twenty years, and the pop artists Red Grooms and Larry Rivers. Rivers, whose first show was in 1951, was the first artist who made a profit for the gallery. In a 1953 show, Rivers exhibited what would become one of his most important works, Washington Crossing the Delaware, which was later destroyed in a museum fire.

In the 1950s Tibor de Nagy Editions was formed and it was the first publishing house to distribute the works of the New York School poets Frank O’Hara, James Schuyler, and John Ashbery. The publications were in pamphlet form, and the poetry was often accompanied by drawings and prints made by some of the gallery artists. Among those to collaborate were Frank O’Hara and Larry Rivers, who worked on a series of lithographs called Stones, and the landscape painter Jane Freilicher, who worked with John Ashbery.

De Nagy became an American citizen in 1953. That same year he went to work for Manufacturers Hanover Trust Banking Company. Following his retirement from the bank in 1970 de Nagy devoted his energies to the gallery. Between 1973 and 1983 he was also a co-owner of the Watson/de Nagy Gallery in Houston. In his later years de Nagy, who continued to speak English with a strong Hungarian accent, returned to Hungary for several visits.

The 1950s were the most vital years for the Tibor de Nagy Gallery; among the collectors who bought from de Nagy were Joseph Hirshhorn, Peggy Guggenheim, and David Rockefeller. By the end of the 1960s, New York City had become the center of the art world, and established galleries, such as the famous Leo Castelli Gallery, were focusing more on investments and public relations. De Nagy’s gallery, which moved to 41 West Fifty-seventh Street in the late 1960s, flourished in this new atmosphere but de Nagy geared his sales more towards private rather than corporate collections. De Nagy’s reputation and the success of his gallery came to depend on his well-trained eye, his belief in the artists he represented, and his strong business sense. In 1991, two years before his death from stomach cancer, the Tibor de Nagy Gallery mounted a fortieth anniversary exhibition. Twenty-five well-established artists who had exhibited with the gallery over the years were represented, affirming de Nagy’s ability to identify art works that could stand the test of time, and provide, in his words, “solid aesthetic values.”

Laura de Coppet, ed., The Art Dealers (1983), contains an autobiographical essay written by de Nagy. Lee Caplin, The Business of Art (1989), contains a chapter written by de Nagy entitled “The Integrity of the Artist, Dealer, and Gallery.” Tibor de Nagy, Arts Magazine (1971), contains a short essay by de Nagy on the philosophy of his art gallery. An obituary is in the New York Times (28 Dec. 1993).

Peter Suchecki