Episode 10/11: A Conversation with Deborah Bell
After 13 years as a private dealer, Deborah Bell opened her first public gallery at 511 West 25th Street in Chelsea and remained there for 10 years (2001-2011). In 2011 Bell closed the gallery in order to join Christie’s New York, where she was Head of the Photographs Department for 2-1/2 years. In 2014 she re-established Deborah Bell Photographs, and in April 2015 moved to the gallery’s present location on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Bell’s professional career as a dealer began with a position at the Sander Gallery, New York, in 1984. She then joined the Prints & Photographs Department of Marlborough Gallery in 1985, and from 1986-87 worked with the Estate of Marcel Broodthaers in Brussels, Belgium. From 1988-1990 Bell assisted Richard Pare, Founding Curator of Photographs for the Canadian Centre for Architecture and the Seagram Collection, New York.
August Sander, Bricklayer, 1928, Minneapolis Institute of Art
A native of Minnesota, Bell received a BFA in Photography from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1976, and an MA in Art History from Hunter College in 1984. Before and after relocating to New York in 1978, Bell was a practicing photographer, and worked in editorial and commercial photography as a black-and-white printer and studio assistant.
From 1971-77, during her high school and college years in Minnesota, Bell was a docent and assistant-at-large at the Walker Art Center. From 1991-96 she was an adjunct professor of the History of Photography at the School of Visual Arts, New York.
Deborah Bell, image courtesy FK Magazine
One of the photographs that Deborah works closely with, Marcia Resnick, will have a traveling solo exhibition that opens at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art on 24 February.
Deborah has been a long time member of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers. The Association of International Photography Art Dealers encourages public support of fine art photography by acting as a collective voice for the dealers in fine art photography and through communication and education that enhances the confidence of the public, museums, institutions and others in responsible fine art photography dealers.
