Art That Went Pop
Ivan Karp, New York City gallerist, is this week’s Shivah Star
July 05, 2012
From left: Leo Castelli; Ivan Karp; Andy Warhol.(Sam Falk/NYT)
Each week, we select the most interesting Jewish obituary. This week, it’s that of Ivan Karp, whose galleries were central to Pop Art. A son of the Bronx and of Brooklyn, he died last week at 86. Though he helped market all of the 1960s avant-garde movement’s most bold-faced names, including Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol, Karp’s favorite thing to do was “rubble-rouse” and try to discover unsung talents. “A particular delight,” reports the Times, “was finding carved portraits that Italian immigrant stone craftsmen had made of one another—warts, missing teeth and all.”
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.
