Gagosian opens third London gallery, spotlighting Twombly

By Farah Nayeri LONDON (Reuters) - Gagosian, one of the world's leading art dealerships, is opening a new gallery in London's smart Mayfair district, its third outpost in the British capital and its 15th worldwide. With the global art market rising 7 percent in 2014 to some 51 billion euros ($57.74 billion), according to a report by the European Fine Art Foundation, there is more and more competition among top end galleries. In the last five years, the Pace, David Zwirner and Marian Goodman galleries have all set up shop in London to cater to an expanding pool of globetrotting art buyers from Europe as well as China, the Middle East, and Central and South America. "There is no doubt that there is growth, and that there is enough interest" to justify having three London spaces, said Gary Waterston, a director of the Gagosian Gallery in London. The dealership, founded by Californian Larry Gagosian, represents some of the world's most sought-after artists, including Jeff Koons, Richard Serra, and Takashi Murakami. The new gallery's non-selling inaugural exhibition consists of paintings, drawings and sculptures by the late U.S. artist Cy Twombly. Waterston said more and more of the gallery's international collectors and clients were staying, lunching, and doing business in Mayfair. Gagosian opened a boutique-sized gallery in Mayfair's Davies Street in 2006 and has been seeking a bigger space nearby ever since, rejecting 17 prospective sites. Architects Caruso St. John, who revamped Tate Britain and designed Damien Hirst's just opened Newport Street Gallery, have transformed the interior into two large exhibition galleries and two small connecting ones. The Twombly paintings on display include two large canvases from his Bacchus series -- reddish-orange loops repeated across a light-beige background -- and two diptychs. Also on display are 16 drawings from 1969. The only Twombly works on sale are in the Davies Street gallery: photographic prints priced in the tens of thousands of dollars, Gagosian said. ($1 = 0.8832 euros) (Editing by Michael Roddy)