It’s time to move, says Anthony Meier about his new gallery in Mill Valley, California, directly across from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. He has been in business for four decades, specializing in contemporary masterpieces and operating his gallery from his home in Pacific Heights, San Francisco. Now that his children are grown and his wife wanted a change of scenery, they were looking for more idyllic locations.
“We looked at other cities to the north and a little bit to the east,” he says, while seated on an antique sofa in the private viewing room of his new location, “and nothing had both that energy and that art history that was there and beyond (Last November, Meier was named president of the Art Dealers Association of America.) Despite Marin County’s ritzy reputation, it used to have a reputation for being alternative and countercultural, and modernist artists and Beat poets called it home. Today, Mill Valley is a hill town with upscale boutiques and a gourmet market, and if you order an Uber, a Tesla might turn up.
“I think the other attraction is more space for our artists,” says Lauren Ryan, Meier’s business partner. “We have twice the exhibition space and more space for programs. And our gallery list is robust.” In addition to collaborating with artists like Larry Bell, Gerhard Richter, and Zoe Leonard, they also have younger artists like Sarah Cain.
In the shadow of Mt. Tam at Anthony Meier Courtesy of Anthony Meier, Mill Valley
The renovated gallery in the center of town is 5,000 square feet, approximately half of which is the main gallery and the other half is the private screening room furnished as a living room and study with select antique European furniture. The inaugural exhibit in the main gallery is In the Shadow of Mt. Tam (until March 17), curated by Ryan, and it’s surprisingly varied, showcasing the artists who lived and worked in the area after WWII. The title “Mt. Tam” is Mount Tamalpais, a cone-shaped mountain that stands out in the local landscape.
One of the most famous artists to come to the area was British painter Gordon Onslow Ford, who persuaded fellow artists Wolfgang Paalen and his wife Luchita Hurtado to move to the Bay Area and then buy a home in Mill Valley. They were later joined by Lee Mullican in the house, and the three men formed the group Dynaton, honing a style of surrealism touched by interests in ancient art and cosmic energies. Michael Auping calls them “pre-hippie surrealists” in his catalog essay on “In the shadow of the mountain Tam”.
Works by Paalen, Ford, Mullican and Hurtado are on display, but a small landscape by the latter catches the eye. She and Paalen later separated, married Mullican, and moved to Los Angeles. Her career was very much overshadowed by her husbands until interest in her work exploded after her inclusion on the 2018 Made in LA show at the Hammer Museum. It was then picked up by Hauser & Wirth.
Etel Adnan, Untitled, 1999 Photo by Chris Grunder. Courtesy of Anthony Meier, Mill Valley
Other artworks in the exhibition include works on paper and Masonite by Jay DeFeo, who was taking a break in nearby Larkspur to recover from the rigors of her epic painting The Rose (1966). The gallery entrance features a small painting of Mount Tamalpais by Etel Adnan, the poet and artist who settled in neighboring Sausalito. She once wrote, “When I stand on Mount Tamalpais, I am in the rhythm of the world. Everything seems right the way it is. I am in tune with the stars, for better or for worse.”
Meier’s move follows a turbulent period in the Bay Area art scene, during which some major galleries (like Pace and Gagosian) have moved out entirely, while others like Jessica Silverman have expanded their footprints. The city also gained a contemporary art institute, which opened last fall in the trendy Dogpatch neighborhood, which is also home to many galleries and the center of the Minnesota Street Project.
“Once you’ve spoken to a gallery in the Bay Area, their reach goes beyond a 50 or 100 mile radius,” says Meier. “So they chose to put their stake in the ground in San Francisco, we chose to put our stake in the ground in Mill Valley. We’re obviously closer to the people of the North Bay, but it’s not an uphill drive to visit us from the South Bay.”
He adds, “We didn’t move out of San Francisco, we just expanded our footprint.”
