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Can you share some insights on how your education in business commerce and art history at Washington & Lee University, followed by your law degree from Tulane University, influenced your decision to move into the art gallery business?

When I was at Washington & Lee, and also at law school at Tulane, I had no sense of being an art dealer — I simply liked art and was starting to collect modestly, mostly prints and British watercolors. My studies in business and art history ended up being useful, as well as my law background, in my eventual decision to enter the art business. I use all three disciplines in the business!

What motivated you to leave your law practice and join Kurt E Schon Gallery in 1977, and how did this experience shape your approach to running your own gallery?

When I worked at Kurt E Schon Gallery in New Orleans, I was somewhat experimenting, and was not 100% certain that I would stay in the art business or return to law practice. But after a short time, maybe six months, I knew I wanted to give the art dealing business a serious try. I know it is a blessing to love what you do in any profession…Even after 45 years, I love the art business and look forward to what each day may bring. It is never boring!

What were some of the challenges and milestones in establishing your first gallery, Taggart & Jorgensen, in Los Angeles, and later moving to Georgetown, Washington, D.C.?

When I decided to go out on my own and opened my first gallery in the summer of 1979, I did so because I had several clients from Los Angeles who encouraged me to come to L.A. There were few galleries in L.A. at that time and a field of all possibilities, so I went there. It was a challenge because I was dealing primarily in 19th century traditional European art, and L.A. was not the place for that type of art. There was more interest in American art, so I slowly began to pivot to American art and away from European. I was not at home in L.A., and realized that I belonged back on the East Coast. I chose Georgetown in Washington, D.C. because I went to boarding school nearby and felt totally at home there right away. We started specializing in 19th and early 20th century American art and met with success immediately.

Can you discuss the factors that led to the expansion of your gallery, including the acquisition of a second space in Georgetown and the subsequent consolidation of operations in Manhattan?

In Georgetown, we established close relationships with the National Gallery of Art, as well as the Corcoran and the Phillips museums. As we continued to grow, we decided to open a contemporary realism division, and we acquired a townhouse two doors down from the main gallery for contemporary art. The main gallery continued to focus on 19th and early 20th century American art, especially Hudson River and American Impressionism.

What drove the shift in your gallery’s focus from 19th and early 20th century American art to specializing in American Abstract Expressionism, and how has this specialization impacted your gallery’s reputation and success?

In the later half of 1990, a major recession kicked in and the stock market, real estate market, and art market all weakened. Business in D.C. was drying up, and I was at a crossroads. I was already making regular trips to NYC for auctions, so I decided to make a major gamble and open a second gallery in NYC. In 1994, we took a space on the Upper East Side, and the recession ended soon thereafter. We found strong success in Manhattan. By 1996, I no longer felt the need to keep the Georgetown spaces, so we sold those spaces and consolidated in Manhattan. Once there, we began mounting shows of American Modernism from 1905-1930 and, over the next few years, early Abstract Expressionist works from 1940-1950. We mounted several scholarly shows analyzing how American Modernism evolved into Abstract Expressionism, which led to reviews in the New York Times and raised the gallery’s reputation for scholarship.

Your gallery is known for mounting numerous exhibitions and publishing significant catalogues. Can you talk about the importance of these activities and some of the most memorable exhibitions and publications you’ve been involved with?

From roughly 1999 to 2010, we embarked on more and more scholarly exhibitions and began collaborating with museums. Several of our gallery shows were accompanied by extensive catalogues and traveled to museums. Our gallery was always motivated to collaborate with scholars and museums in examining areas of American art history that had not been previously covered in depth. We mounted “The Color of Modernism,” examining how the French Fauve movement influenced American Modernist painters and how color was used to provoke emotional responses. We also mounted “Pathways and Parallels,” which examined the bridges that led to early Abstract Expressionism and how it evolved from American Modernism. We uncovered aspects of art history that few people had known about before our shows. We were always motivated by contributing to art history, and some of these major exhibition catalogues have been used in colleges.

You’ve had successful collaborations with museums in the past. Can you elaborate on the benefits and challenges of these partnerships, and share details about the upcoming Audrey Flack and Sheila Isham museum exhibitions?

In the earlier days, collaborating with museums was widely accepted and provided mutual benefit. We were able to mount boutique, museum-quality exhibitions and share them with museums without requiring the museum to do the full work. Starting around 2010, museum policies shifted and the environment became more restrictive for commercial gallery/museum collaborations. It is still possible, but more limited than before. We are currently involved in a couple of museum events, including helping mount a retrospective of works by Audrey Flack at the Parrish Art Museum in Long Island, and curating an exhibition of Sheila Isham’s work at the Katzen Arts Center at American University in Washington, D.C., opening in Fall 2025.

How do you navigate the dynamics of the art fair circuit, and what trends do you currently see shaping the art market?

Art fairs have become a significant part of the art business. We participate in five art fairs each year. Foot traffic in physical galleries, especially since Covid, has decreased, so art fairs have become an efficient way to meet many people and for collectors to see a lot of art under one roof instead of trying to visit dozens of galleries in person. With increasing overhead and competition in the art world, I expect some consolidation among galleries, more galleries sharing artists and working together, and continued use of art fairs to compete. The art market is soft currently, due to high interest rates and uncertainty around elections, wars, and global political shifts. I anticipate an improved market environment in the fall after the election.

Can you share more about the history of the Hollis Taggart Gallery and its divisions?

The gallery was originally created in the summer of 1979 as Taggart & Jorgensen on La Cienega Blvd. in Los Angeles. We moved to Georgetown, Washington, D.C. in the spring of 1983. We bought a second gallery space on P Street in 1990, the former Adams Davidson Gallery building, and operated both a contemporary realism division and a historical division in Georgetown. In 1993, I bought out my partner Carl Jorgensen and created Hollis Taggart Galleries, Inc., a name that has remained to this day. In January 1994, I opened a gallery at 48 E. 73rd Street in Manhattan and operated both Georgetown and Manhattan locations until 1996, when I consolidated in NYC. In 2005 we moved to 958 Madison Avenue and in 2015 relocated to our current Chelsea location. We also operated a Chicago gallery from 2003-2010 before closing that space. Since then, we have remained exclusively in New York City.

What divisions and specialties does the gallery currently maintain?

We currently have two divisions: a contemporary art division and a historical division. We specialize in American Abstract Expressionism now, after having dealt in 19th and early 20th century American art in prior years. We mount exhibitions in the gallery regularly, averaging 12 shows a year. We have published two catalogues raisonnés, for Daniel Garber and Kay Sage, and we are currently compiling the Michael West catalogue raisonné. We were also involved in the Frederick Carl Frieseke catalogue raisonné for 6-7 years before the project was turned over to the Archives of American Art about three years ago.

What are some notable fair exhibitions and museum placements for the gallery?

We exhibit in numerous art fairs including Art Miami, Art Palm Beach, Art Expo Chicago, Dallas Art Fair, and the Armory Show, and we have exhibited at Frieze New York in past years. We have placed many works in museum collections and shared gallery exhibitions with museums. For example, Edward Middleton Manigault was shared with the Columbus Museum in Ohio, the University Gallery at the University of Delaware, and the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, SC. We also shared an exhibition called “Espana” with the New Britain Museum of American Art in 1999. In both cases, we published the show catalogues and transferred the shows from our gallery directly to the museums. Since then, museums have become more cautious about such collaborations with commercial galleries.