Peter Nagy, the founder of Indian gallery Nature Morte, has died.
Born in Connecticut, Nagy had already established himself as an artist – known for his xerox works – when he and Alan Belcher founded the gallery in 1982 in New York’s East Village, their exhibitions reflecting Nagy’s studio interest in conceptualism.
The gallery closed in 1988, only to reopen almost a decade later when Nagy moved to New Delhi.
With artists including Bharti Kher, Jitash Khallat and Raqs Media Collective, Nature Morte grew to include a second New Delhi space and a gallery in Mumbai opened in January 2024, in the Dhanraj Mahal building.
Nagy’s own work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Nagy had been ill for some time and in a statement on social media, the gallery said: ‘Peter was clear that, when the time came, the gallery should not close its doors in mourning. To him, an exhibition was never about the gallery. It belonged to the artist who had poured themselves into it and to everyone who came to see it. He believed an artist’s moment should never be put on hold.’