NEW YORK (AP) -- Anyone can discover an artist, Leo Castelli once said, "but to make him what he is, give him importance, that's really discovery."
To the many American contemporary masters he promoted, Castelli, who died Sunday at age 91, was the quintessence of that vision -- an art dealer with an independent eye and a mind to match.In fostering the careers of such painters as Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, admirers say he brought an energy and congeniality to the landscape of modern art he helped define.
Castelli died at his home on Manhattan's Upper East Side following a short illness, said Amy Poll, a family spokeswoman. A private service was held Sunday evening at his home.
In addition to Rauschenberg and Johns, Castelli's stable included Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Robert Morris, Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland, Cy Twombly, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra and Andy Warhol.
Though some of his most famous artists defected to other dealers during the churning 1980s, Castelli's New York galleries were hot houses for major talents in the schools and styles that arose in post-war America and made New York the center of contemporary art.
He was in the forefront in promoting the successors to abstract expressionism -- pop artists, minimalists and conceptualists. Author Danielle Gardner titled him "a modern Medici, the man who sold Europe on contemporary American art."
Castelli was born in Trieste in 1907 of well-to-do, socially prominent parents. He was educated in Milan and dabbled in the insurance business.
His marriage in 1933 to Ileana Schapira, daughter of a wealthy Romanian industrialist, led to a job in Paris and indulgence in the couple's interest in modern art.
Castelli opened a gallery in Paris with Rene Drouin, an architect and designer. Their first and only show, a surrealist exhibit in 1939, was a success. Then World War II erupted and Castelli, a Jew, made his way to New York.
In 1957, at age 50, he and his wife opened a small gallery in their townhouse home on East 77th Street and began looking for artists headed in new directions.
Castelli and Ileana divorced in 1960 and he married Antoinette Fraissex du Bost in 1963. She died in 1987. He married in 1995. He has children, Nina Sundell and Jean-Cristophe.