Who

A respected contemporary dealer known for her discerning eye, Goodman represents (mostly) established artists at her uptown gallery.

Backstory

New York City native Marian Geller was raised by a schoolteacher (her mom) and an accountant (her dad), both of whom, she says, nurtured her passion for modern art. After graduating from Emerson in Boston and returning to New York, in 1965 Goodman founded the now-defunct Multiples gallery, which published artists' prints and books. Eleven years later, she opened her eponymous gallery on 57th Street with the posthumous American debut of Belgian conceptual artist Marcel Broodthaers. She moved to her present quarters down the block four years later. Today, she reps the likes of Maurizio Cattelan, Pierre Hugyue, John Baldessari, Jeff Wall, Tacita Dean, and Gerhard Richter; she's also serving a three-year stint as co-vice-president of the Art Dealers Association of America.

Of note

Goodman has a reputation for refusing to engage the art-world scene—she won't relocate, or open a branch in gallery hotspot Chelsea. (She does, however, have an outpost on Rue du Temple in Paris, which opened in 1999.) Her dedication and seriousness of purpose has earned her kudos, particularly as the art scene increasingly resembles a hedge fund manager meet-and-greet. "She may be the most respected—and least public—contemporary dealer in New York, for her taste, standards, and loyalty to her artists," Peter Schjeldahl opined in the New Yorker in 2004, adding that her gallery "gives the art world rare jolts of self-esteem; it emanates integrity."

Personal

She's divorced from William Goodman, a civil engineer whom she married when she was 21. They have two children, Michael (an industrial photographer in New York), and Amy (an herbalist in Vermont). Goodman lives in the Majestic on Central Park West, where her neighbors include Norman Siegel and Conan O'Brien.

Family ties

Her former brother-in-law's son, Andrew Goodman, was one of the three civil rights activists who were murdered in Mississippi in 1964, a crime that became the basis for the film Mississippi Burning.