Together with other enterprises such as Margo Leavin’s, Patricia Faure and Betty Asher’s, as well as James Corcoran's, the Daniel Weinberg Gallery was one of the main commercial galleries to bring a stream of blue-chip offerings to the city, and to cement the reputation of Los Angeles as an international, thriving art scene and market. The archive includes business records, correspondence, extensive photographic documentation as well as exhibition cards.
“The GRI has been collecting important archives regarding the art market in Los Angeles for many years,” says Mary Miller, director of the GRI. “The Weinberg papers add another fundamental holding to an area of research for which the GRI is recognized as the most important destination.”
The comprehensive archive is particularly rich in documenting the gallery’s operation starting from its first move to Los Angeles from San Francisco in the early 1980s. Also included in the archives are artist files, with related correspondence, documents regarding the production, framing, exhibition, sale and shipping of artworks, and extensive correspondence with clients, institutions, and other commercial galleries. Additionally, the archives contain inventory cards with complete provenance information of artworks, and in most cases, with a Polaroid attached.
One-person exhibitions at the gallery have included, among others, Richard Artschwager, Jo Baer, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Lee Bontecou, John Chamberlain, Dan Flavin, Robert Gober, Donald Judd, Jeff Koons, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Brice Marden, John McLaughlin, Bruce Nauman, Richard Prince, Robert Ryman, Richard Tuttle, John Wesley, Christopher Wool, and many others.
Long before other dealers opened galleries in California, Weinberg offered rising and emergent talent some of their earliest exposure on the West Coast during the 1970s and ’80s. Among those to have their first West Coast gallery show through him were Dorothea Rockburne, Robert Gober, Jeff Koons, Charles Gaines, Christopher Wool, and Peter Cain.
About Daniel Weinberg
Daniel Weinberg was born in Chicago, IL on December 25, 1933. A lifelong amateur cartoonist with an interest in history, Daniel graduated from San Diego State College (now known as San Diego State University) with a dual degree in history and political science. After completing a single semester at UC Berkeley School of Law, he moved to San Francisco for an on-air role at KIBE/KDFC, before scoring a sales trainee position at Levi Strauss & Co. at the age of 27. Daniel was ultimately selected by Levi’s for his artistic talents to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City for a one-year graduate degree in apparel design for college graduates. He returned to Levi's as a designer of women’s wear. During his time in New York and on subsequent business trips both there and to Europe for fashion forecasting, Daniel’s interest in contemporary art grew. He developed a close relationship with New York dealer Klaus Kertess of the Bykert Gallery, who brought him into the orbit of a number of minimalists and post-minimalists whom he would later show.
Soon after Levi’s went public for the first time in 1971, Daniel sold his stock and opened Daniel Eastland, a clothing store that also had a separate art gallery space, with his friend and business partner Faye Eastland. Soon after opening, Weinberg realized he wanted to focus on art, so he moved forward with the gallery and his business partner took over the clothing store. The Daniel Weinberg Gallery officially opened in San Francisco at 560 Sutter Street in 1973. His first three shows were with David Novros, Dorothea Rockburne, and Richard Tuttle, respectively. Over the next 40 years, the gallery continued to show young, emerging, and mid-career artists, operating in San Francisco (1973–1983; 1993–1998) and in Los Angeles (1983–1993; 1998–2012).
The Daniel Weinberg Gallery collection will be cataloged over several years, after which it will be made available at the GRI.