Painter Raymond Saunders joins David Zwirner

Raymond Saunders, a painter whose work has been seen with a new level of attention in American museums in the past decade, has joined the roster of David Zwirner, one of the world’s largest galleries.

But while the jump to a mega gallery usually results in an exit from a smaller firm, Saunders will also continue to be represented at New York’s Andrew Kreps Gallery.

To toast the new deal, David Zwirner and Andrew Kreps will stage Saunders’ concerts this month. David Zwirner’s two-site exhibition will be curated by Ebony L. Haynes, who directs the gallery’s 52 Walker space.

“Andrew contacted me late last year to introduce me to the work of Raymond Saunders, and I was immediately mesmerized,” dealer David Zwirner said in a statement. “When I saw the work in Andrew’s gallery I felt that I was in the presence of a great American voice in painting, which has not been given its due.”

Mega-galleries such as David Zwirner are signing similar co-representation agreements with increasing frequency. Hauser & Wirth, for example, recently launched a “collective impact” initiative that attracts new artists and also honors its current galleries. So far, Uman and Ambera Wellman have joined Hauser & Wirth through the initiative, maintaining their links with galleries such as Nicola Vassell and Company in the process.

Saunders joined David Zwirner as he prepares for a traveling survey being hosted by the Orange County Museum of Art.

Many of Saunders’ paintings look more assemblages, with found materials affixed to backgrounds that are scribbled with lines, patterns and symbols. At once cryptic and seductive, the works establish connections between the varied materials in a way reminiscent of Robert Rauschenberg’s combined works.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Saunders achieved acclaim, showing with the renowned Terry Dintenfass Gallery in New York. In addition, he received attention outside the art world for his pamphlet Black is a color, which contested Ishmael Reed’s ideas about the Black Arts Movement, claiming that it did not define Blackness expansively. Saunders, who is based in Oakland, California, even had a San Francisco Museum of Modern Art show in 1971.

However, Saunders does not have the same level of fame as other artists of the time, although inclusions in recent group shows have helped raise his profile. He appeared in crucial surveys of black artists in California and the influence of the Black Power movement on artistic creation, as well as in a show about the Just Above Midtown gallery that was organized in 2022 by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Dealer Andrew Kreps, whose 2022 Saunders show was the artist’s first in New York in more than 20 years, said in a statement: “There’s no question that Raymond still doesn’t have his due, and I think these simultaneous exhibitions, one of the most expansive presentations of his work to date, will make clear how deep and rich his practice is. I can think of no other artist who is able to bring together so effortlessly such a wide range of marks and materiality, with each work becoming its own world.”