LA Louver, the longest-running gallery in Los Angeles, is closing its Venice location to the public after celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. The historic gallery, which has operated continuously since 1975, marked its milestone with a major anniversary exhibition featuring works by longtime artists including David Hockney, Edward Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz, Rebecca Campbell, Gajin Fujita, and Alison Saar.
The gallery is now transitioning into a new operational phase that will focus on private dealing and pop-up exhibitions, primarily operating from its Jefferson Boulevard warehouse facility in Los Angeles' West Adams neighborhood. Founder Peter Goulds, who will turn 77 next month, explained that the new model will offer greater flexibility in programming. "We are heading into a stage where instead of ten shows per year, we may make two shows a year, or another year it could be six," Goulds said. "As our imagination grows and we're liberated from our programming responsibility, the gallery will be a more free-wheeling enterprise."
The Venice space will be listed for sale but will remain open by appointment during an interim period while the gallery sells its remaining inventory. Goulds emphasized his commitment to continuing his work despite his age. "I have no intention to retire, ever, but we need a new business model," he stated. The gallery's directors Kimberly Davis and Elizabeth East, along with managing director Lisa Jann, have been working with Goulds on this transition for nearly a decade.
As part of the transformation, LA Louver is donating its extensive archive to the Huntington Library in San Marino. The institution, which houses papers from notable writers including Octavia Butler and Christopher Isherwood, has particular strengths in English-language literature and California history. Sandra Brooke Gordon, the Huntington Library's director, praised the donation, saying, "The LA Louver Archive & Library offers an unparalleled record of Southern California's artistic and cultural life, interwoven with vital Anglo-American connections. This gift will enrich the library's holdings in literature, art, business and cultural history, providing scholars with new insights into Los Angeles as a city of tremendous creativity."
Goulds, a British transplant who has maintained his self-deprecating humor, downplayed the gallery's significance while acknowledging its historical importance. "It's not that we are the best thing since sliced cheese or the greatest gallery that has ever been," he said. "It's that we've spanned this important time period—the largest period of cultural growth in Los Angeles history spans 1970s to now." Despite early conversations with the Smithsonian and Getty, Goulds chose the Huntington because of its broad reach and phenomenal resources, including a library renovation in progress, more than eight miles of underground storage, and 85 employees, 17 of whom are curators at the library alone.
The gallery's closure differs significantly from the sudden shutdown of Blum gallery, which surprised its artists and staff in July. Goulds emphasized that he began planning this transition well before the current art market contraction. The team has been strategically preparing for this change, purchasing the Jefferson Boulevard facility in 2012 initially for storage but later renovating it to host private viewings, house archives, and support scholarly activities. They hired professional librarians and archivists to organize their materials and will continue supporting artists through focused exhibitions, commissions, and museum project assistance.
Goulds also plans to use the Jefferson Boulevard space for two personal projects: his collection of Aboriginal desert paintings, which will be donated to an institution, and his collection of works by 19th-century French painter Adolphe Monticelli. Goulds considers Monticelli a bridge between Delacroix and Cézanne, though he notes the research "might exceed my lifetime" and the collection might not be gifted.
The archive donation to the Huntington, scheduled for completion by 2029, represents a treasure trove for researchers. It includes documentation of all 667 exhibitions staged by the gallery, from career-defining shows of Wallace Berman, Frederick Hammersley, Leon Kossoff, Ken Price, and Alice Neel to the emerging artists group shows called "Rogue Wave." The archive also contains extensive correspondence between gallery staff, artists, curators, and other art world figures.
The gallery's origins trace back to 1975 when Goulds, who had studied at art school in London and worked in graphic design, planned to open the gallery with his wife Liz in Venice near a cluster of artist studios. The name "LA Louver" came from an artwork Goulds created as an homage to Marcel Duchamp's "Fresh Widow" (1920). He made a miniature louvered window with mirrors lining the slats, calling it "La Louver," which could be read as "LA Louver." His wife suggested the name would work perfectly for their gallery.
The David Hockney files in the archive are particularly extensive, reflecting the artist's prolific correspondence and his 23 solo shows with the gallery. The files include many of Hockney's earliest iPhone and iPad drawings and paintings as he began embracing technology as an artistic medium. The archive also contains comprehensive documentation of the gallery's sales history, providing valuable insights into the growth of the Los Angeles art market over five decades.
LA Louver notably resisted much of the international art fair circuit, participating only in Art Chicago during the 1980s and later Art Basel on a regular basis. Goulds revealed that ten years of Art Basel participation led to a major reassessment in 2012 about the gallery's priorities, "as we were seeing the beginning of what would be the deterioration of the art-fair model." He calculated that participating in Art Basel Switzerland, Hong Kong, Art Unlimited, and the sculpture program would cost $600,000 total. The next day, they learned about the Jefferson Boulevard property, which they purchased for $1.65 million and invested an additional $2.2 million to build out. They immediately stopped doing international fairs.
Goulds offered a cautionary perspective on the art fair model, warning that over-dependence on fairs creates vulnerability. "People have built their financial futures on doing these big fairs, but if 60% of your business comes from that one source, that's fragile beyond belief. You could go out on a dime with that," he said, emphasizing the importance of developing a strong home base. He concluded with a sobering prediction about the Los Angeles gallery scene: "Most of the galleries that have opened here in the last few years will not be here five years from now."
