Hotel Chelsea Artists Gain Renewed Market Recognition

(MENAFN- USA Art News) A group of artists who once resided at New York's iconic Hotel Chelsea are now receiving overdue attention, with their works appearing in major exhibitions and at art fairs. These include the late Bettina (1927–2021), Ching Ho Cheng (1946–89), Bernard Childs (1910–85), Herbert Gentry (1919–2003), Nicola L. (1932–2018), and Teruko Yokoi (1924–2020).

Many relatives of these artists still live in the building, which has been a hub for creatives, musicians, and bohemians since its 1884 opening. Sybao Cheng-Wilson, sister of Ching Ho Cheng, moved into the Chelsea in the 1980s to care for her brother, who was battling AIDS. She described a persistent feeling of his presence after his death, noting how the bathroom lightbulb would flicker annually on his birthday, December 26, for years.

Cheng-Wilson has dedicated herself to preserving her brother's legacy, retaining his art and apartment, and raising her daughter there despite the hotel's reputation. Similarly, Judith Childs, who moved into the Chelsea in 1966 with her artist husband, Bernard, continues to live in their shared first-floor apartment, surrounded by his geometric abstractions.

In September, Bernard Childs's 1970s canvases, priced between $14,000 and $55,000, were featured in a solo stand at New York's Armory Show by the Shanghai- and New York-based gallery Bank. Bank founder Mathieu Borysevicz, who recently began working with Childs's estate, took a risk by featuring the long-overlooked artist. Childs had previously exhibited at Documenta in 1959 and had a solo show at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam the same year, but his last in-person solo show with his former dealer, Jason McCoy Gallery, was in 2013; that gallery closed in 2024.

Borysevicz has also championed Ching Ho Cheng's estate since 2021. Cheng, who developed four major bodies of work during his career, from psychedelic paintings to graphite on torn paper and rusted surfaces, appeared in last year's“Sixties Surreal” at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. His first major retrospective is scheduled for September 2027 at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts. Cheng moved into the Chelsea in 1976 and befriended Childs; Judith Childs and Cheng-Wilson have maintained a close relationship, and Cheng-Wilson introduced Judith to Borysevicz.

Another Chelsea resident and friend of Childs from his 1950s Paris days was Herbert Gentry, an African American painter known for his jazz-inspired abstractions. He arrived at the hotel in the late 1960s, joined by his second wife, artist Mary Anne Rose, in 1978. Rose still resides at the Chelsea and oversees Gentry's estate. Jeffrey Lee, Gentry's dealer at New York's Ryan Lee gallery, stated,“Herbert's work is so distinctive stylistically, but he was also foundational in bridging what was happening in North America and Europe.” By December, Gentry's work will be simultaneously on view in museum group shows in Alabama, Germany, and Martinique, in addition to a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Sweden.

Not all Chelsea artists have family members on site to protect their legacies. When the reclusive conceptual artist Bettina died in 2021, hotel management began clearing her apartment, which was filled with her life's work. The situation was captured in the 2022 documentary“Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel,” which showed Bettina sleeping in a lawn chair in the hallway due to the abundance of her art. However, Moroccan artist Yto Barrada, with whom Bettina connected in her final years, saved the contents of her apartment from being discarded. Before Bettina's death, Barrada presented her sculptures at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Arts Center on Governors Island, leading to an appearance in“Greater New York 2021” at MoMA PS1. Barrada now oversees Bettina's estate with assistance from Anna McCormick-Goodhart; the estate is represented by Ulrik in New York. A solo show at the Ruth Foundation for the Arts in Milwaukee concluded in April.

McCormick-Goodhart noted the density of Bettina's archive, which includes photography, printmaking, painting, sculpture, textile, and commercial design. Bettina, known for her eccentricities in later life, had also planned an ambitious, unfulfilled exhibition titled“The Chelsea Hotel: Artists at Work” in the 1980s, which would have featured works by Cheng, Childs, Gentry, and Rose, among others.

Another prominent artist from the hotel was Nicola L., a documentary filmmaker known for her“functional sculptures,” anthropomorphic furniture resembling body parts. Her 2014 film“Doors Ajar at the Chelsea Hotel” documented her nearly 30 years at the residence. Nicola L.'s work gained wider recognition when London's Tate Modern included it in its 2015 exhibition“The World Goes Pop.” Her first institutional solo show took place in 2017 at New York's SculptureCenter, and London gallery Alison Jacques began representing her estate after her death in 2018. A retrospective,“When the Earth Turned the Other Way,” recently closed in April at Belgium's Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, and the traveling museum exhibition“I Am the Last Woman Object” concluded its European tour in March.

Nicola L. also played a crucial role in mobilizing Chelsea residents to protect their rent-stabilized apartments during an 11-year renovation project that transformed the property into a high-end hotel with rates starting around $500 per night. Her son, Christophe Lanzenberg, explained that“The Chelsea allowed them to thrive and stay in New York, instead of getting kicked out of places where rents were coming up.” Currently, 42 families still reside at the Chelsea, fostering close bonds. However, one artist, Gerald DeCock, is facing eviction at the end of February after 31 years.

Source: The Art Newspaper

MENAFN30102026005694012507ID1111891951