A Closer Look Through the Viewfinder

CAENLUCIER with Jeffrey Fraenkel

CAENLUCIER: Looking back to 1979, what advice would you give your “young gallerist” self?

JEFFREY FRAENKEL: I would point out to my 24-year-old self that truly great artworks don’t come along every day, so when they do I should do whatever is necessary to buy them, put them away, and hold on to them for as long as possible. Forever is best.

CL: What still excites you today about your work?

JF: Students coming in to spend time with the exhibitions and then hanging around to discuss the artworks they’ve seen. Nothing beats that.

CL: Discuss the importance of your gallery’s publishing program.

JF: Exhibitions are at the core of the gallery’s program but they disappear after two months – while books are forever. We’ve published more than fifty books over the years and take every aspect of them seriously. Books are what stick around when everything else is gone.

CL: What attribute does your dream client/collector have?

JF: The desire to look at and discuss artworks without checking their phone.

CL: Is there a picture in your collection you will never part with?

JF: Yes, Diane Arbus’s Identical Twins, Roselle, N.J. 1966, bought at auction in 1986.

CL: Is there a photograph you regret selling?

JF: Yes, a magical photograph of a leaf, made by the little-known French photographer Charles Aubry in 1864. It went to a great collector though and will ultimately end up in a museum.

CL: Which picture are you most proud of placing in a museum collection?

JF: I’ll single out a collection that we sold to the National Gallery in 1995. The 73 photographs had been assembled over the gallery’s first decade by our earliest great collectors, David and Mary Robinson. Tangentially, David was also the architect who designed our gallery at 49 Geary, which remains a superb space for exhibiting artworks even now. David was a real collector, and knew how to design a space perfectly suited for diving into art. It was pretty much as if he designed it for himself. We’ve expanded several times over the years, but more than three decades later his original design still feels handsome and fresh.

Interview at Paris photo November 2021

CL: A corner of San Francisco that is close to your heart?

JF: Any seat in the Castro Theatre.

CL: What are you reading?

JF: Hanya Yanagihara’s To Paradise and Colm Toibin’s The Magician.

CL: Do gallerists ever completely retire?

JF: Yes, five years after they die.