Bob Malenfant Helms the established and expansive Southwest Gallery offering a plethora of genres. What?s in a name? ?The biggest problem we have is with our name. We are more than Southwestern art. People know us for our variety,? says Bob Malenfant, the Director of Southwest Gallery. Malenfant credits the gallery?s variety with its success. He says, ?The traditional is still very strong. It sells all the time. Western comes and goes; contemporary comes and goes. We are one of the few galleries in Dallas that has a large stock of traditional work.?
And variety they have, including landscapes, still lifes, figurative and non-objective work, fashioned in paint, stone and metal. While they do show Southwestern art, Malenfant says it represents less than 10% of the gallery?s offerings. In fact, doing a ?search by style? on their website will not even present Southwestern art as an option. The gallery has the work of over 400 artists, about 100 of whom they represent full time, and a staff of 12. They also have an on-site custom-framing studio and restoration studio.
A walk through the 18,000-square-foot space will yield many surprises. In one gallery, dedicated to Western art, including the work of W.A. Slaughter, the work of Xiang Zhang stands out. Malenfant explains that many Chinese artists came to the US in the 1980s as professors for what was supposed to be a finite period of time. Many chose to remain stateside, including Xiang. He was brought to the 6666 Ranch in King County to do a portrait. He found ranch life appealing and has been painting life on the range since. Malenfant explains that his work depicts ?the contemporary Western way of life.?
Xiang is one of several foreign artists represented by the gallery. Another Chinese artist, Zhiwei Tu, has a museum, opened by the Shiaoguan City Government of China in 2006, dedicated to his work. In addition, the gallery is one of the few in town that represent the work of Russian artists. ?The technique is so fine with Russian work. You can always spot their work,? says Malenfant, adding that, as with the Chinese artists, their rigorous training is apparent in the quality of what they produce.
Southwest Gallery is one of the oldest contemporary art galleries in the area. In 1967, the first owner, Gene Carmack, purchased a gallery franchise from a Dutch sea captain specifically to sell artwork made in Europe. By 1970, he had B shed this association and began the Southwest Art Center. It eventually grew into an enormous operation, carrying graphics supplies as well as paintings, sculptures and prints. In 1984, it split into two businesses, one of which became Southwest Gallery.
Carmack had a good eye and, in his time, he brought substantial artists to his stable. For example, in the 1970s, he went to Mexico where he met Rufino Tamayo and his wife, Olga. The notoriously difficult Mrs. Tamayo took a liking to Carmack and, as a result, he was able to buy artist?s proofs of all of Tamayo?s graphic work, dating from 1974?84. He also gave Tamayo three one-man shows. According to Malenfant, ?We are the largest graphic collector of Tamayo?s work in the world.? Aside from the quality of the work, after Tamayo?s death in 1991, the prices it commanded skyrocketed.
Malenfant became involved with the gallery in 1985 and became its director in 1988. At this time, he says, the gallery?s focus switched exclusively to selling original art. The gallery has seen many changes since Malenfant took the helm. In 1995, it moved into its current building, located in the Northern Design District, the furniture mecca around Alpha Road. ?The success of this location is that it has become a destination for people looking at art,? he says.
And anyone old enough to have been working in the 1980s can relate to Malenfant when he says that since that time, ?It?s a whole different world.? Because traditionally the art world has valued seeing work in person, Malenfant was originally skeptical about the power of technology. ?I was talked into doing the website. I never envisioned the amount of direct business we would do over the Internet,? he confesses. At this point, he divulges that approximately 40% of his business is generated over the Internet. And it is not just from Americans. The gallery has clients in South America, Europe, Canada, Japan and India?many of whom have never walked through its doors. In addition to his website, he also credits the art portals of which the gallery is a member, sites such as artnet, Artprice and Mutual Art, as driving ales. The gallery is now also part of Amazon?s Collectible and Fine Arts roster. In 2017, Southwest Gallery will celebrate its 50th anniversary, a remarkable achievement for any gallery. Plans are afoot for a gala for clients featuring the work of 50 artists. It will be a reason to celebrate. –P