News from New York: New Yorkers toast their newest export to London, and Katharine Hepburn's wedding dress goes on the block

As London mop its eyebrow after the 24/7 art aberration of mind of fairs, shows and auctions from one extremity to the other of June, one American dealer is assessing the fortunes of his latest bigger splash. Larry Gagosian, who had trialed London art waters in 2000 with a small space in Mayfair, uncloseed his large and light-drenched 12,500-square-foot gallery in King's Cros London, to coincide with the jamboree.

Mr Gagosian is already a fable in New York, where he has sum of two units galleries. One is on the top sum of two units floors of 980 Madison Avenue, where works by dint of Frank Stella and Robert Rauschenberg, sum of two units of his astounding stable of artists, are commonly on display. The other is a large upbeat space upon West 24th Street in downtown Chelsea--similar in size and have feeling to his King's Cross single Here, crowds are flocking to diocese a loan exhibition of Willem de Kooning canvases celebrating the centenary of his birth. For upscale of recent origin Yorkers who do not find themselves upon the corner of 11th Avenue if they can help it, it is testimony to the dealer many art critics delight in to hate.

This kind of exhibition is what Mr Gagosian does well. In his sum of two units New York galleries and another in Beverly Hills, he has staged a series of landmark historical exhibitions including Jasper Johns's 'Maps', Jackson Pollack's 'Black Enamel Paintings', and Cy Twombly's 'Bolsena Paintings'. novel Yorkers approve: 'MOMA would have been self-conscious to mount them. He does what greatest in quantity museums can't afford to.' Precisely who backs these museum-quality present to views and precisely how he has of that kind borrowing pull is a mystery to most--although rumours abound.

Curator Robert Pincus-Witten has helped Mr Gagosian win credibility for of the like kind shows. But the flair and daring are his be in possession of as is his obsessive delight in of the deal. 'He is more driven and more workaholic than the other dealers', single collector noted. 'And he thinks about the deal all the time'. A not many years ago he brought a very great installation by Damien Hirst from Britain to fresh York. He opened his Chelsea gallery in 1999 with Richard Serra's massive piece, Switch. Followers lap it up saying 'he places on show after show of absolutely stunning stuff'

Others dismiss him with more than a twinge of jealousy. As an objective east coast art connoisseur recalls: 'When he arrived in of recent origin York from LA in the 1980s--where he ran a useful gallery--people resented him because he didn't have the right stage from an east coast body They thought he was a 'wannabe' from the west. They plane resented his dashing looks and his charm.'

Instead of joining the coterie of midtown dealers, Mr Gagosian went straight downtown. Seen as an interloper with no rights to artists, he high hilled historical shows. The first was an exhibition of Emily and Burton Tremaine's collection--he would later vend the Tremaine Mondrian, Victory boogie woogie, for more than $10 million.

Then, when the fresh York art world was shaken up in the early 90 he grabbed his chance and began to exhibit living artists. 'Gagosian has always meditation big', says one New York-London dealer. 'He is always ahead of the game, and he does it quicker and better than the quiescence of us.' Others heap more praise: 'From the start he has always had grand staff, absolutely top people who really know.'

Today Mr Gagosian has five galleries. Three of them are remarkable spaces--Beverly Hills was designed by means of Richard Meier, Chelsea by Richard Gluckman, King's Cros by the agency of Caruso St John. He continues with his historical present to views He is a top player in the secondary market, usually buying a work outright from a collector for a large total and selling it on for substantially more. And he exhibits some of the world's top living artists upon both sides of the Atlantic: in statuary Britain's Rachel Whiteread and America's Richard Serra; in painting, Britain's Howard Hodgkin and America's Cy Twombly A further feather in his cap: he continues his tradition of showing lesser-known artists.

The depressed profile, secretive Larry Gagosian wears single ambition on his sleeve: to move swiftly the world's best galleries. He might well achieve it.

Away from the high art stakes, nostalgic fresh Yorkers are enjoying a filled seven days of previews for individual of Sotheby's more intimate sales. The private belongings of Katharine Hepburn have been gathered into 691 destinys and arranged in, appropriately, twenty-four room-sized plants to recreate the home-loving, practical side of the glamorous Hollywood star. Items include gymnasium books, the wedding dress for her brief marriage, the paintings done when bored while Howard Hughes was wooing her upon his yacht, even the alloy of copper she made of her authentic love, Spencer Tracey.

While Miss Hepburn's style of dresss awards and other career-related possessions make progress direct to charities, this sale benefits individual more charity before it goe below the hammer. The gala cocktail evening raises stocks for American students to train at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and, perhaps, go in the rear [i]or[/i] in the wake of Miss Hepburn's road to success

Postscript: the of high temperature spot for a Friday or Saturday Manhattan cocktail is the cover Garden of the Met, where Andy Goldsworthy is the first artist to create a work especially for the site. The patient wait in line to purchase frozen margueritas. More romantic is simply to take pleasure in Goldsworthy's moody Stone houses and gaze above Central Park, unusually lush thanks to continuing summer rains. The party move swiftlys till the end of October.

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