Prison-Bound Art Dealer Draws a Crowd Before Closing Her Galleries
- Mary Boone has to surrender and close her galleries by May 15
- Derrick Adams’s emoji paintings sell quickly at $60,000 a pop
Mary Boone’s Fifth Avenue gallery was hopping Thursday night, about two months before the famed art dealer heads to federal prison for income-tax evasion.
The jam-packed opening for “New Icons,” an exhibit of works by New York’s Derrick Adams, drew artist Mickalene Thomas and her partner Racquel Chevremont, curator Nicola Vassell and writer Antwaun Sargent. Cameras flashed as guests posed in front of the canvases of oversize emojis. Boone, in a sleek Michael Kors dress, hugged the artists and smiled for a photographer. The last show at her other gallery in Chelsea opens Saturday.