FELIX CLAY/COURTESY HAUSER & WIRTH
Graham Steele will join Hauser Wirth & Schimmel as a senior director, the gallery announced today. The Los Angeles outpost of Hauser & Wirth, the Swiss powerhouse that runs two spaces in New York, and one each in Zürich, London, and Somerset, England, is due to open in January of next year.
Steele joins the gallery from White Cube, where he helped found that gallery’s Hong Kong location. Hauser & Wirth’s L.A. expansion is being helmed by Paul Schimmel, the former senior curator at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, who was named a partner at the gallery in 2013 after leaving MOCA amidst a great deal of controversy with the museum’s former director, Jeffrey Deitch.
Iwan Wirth, co-founder of Hauser & Wirth, noted that Steele, who in addition to White Cube has also worked in client services at Sotheby’s, is a “great asset.” We will note that Steele, who begins in his new role in April, also has a pretty dignified-sounding name.