Harry Blain

Harry Blain

Harry Blain (born 12 September 1967)^[1] is a British art dealer and a co-founder of the BlainSouthern gallery.

He is also the founder of Sedition art, an online platform where editioned, digital artworks by the world's leading contemporary artists can be bought and traded.

In 1992 and Blain opened Blains Fine Art, which specialised in the private placement of works of art by a wide range of contemporary artists.

In 2002 he started Haunch of Venison gallery with Graham Southern. Southern had been a Founding Director of Christie's (London) Post-War & Contemporary Art Department, which he ran until 2001.^[2]

The gallery represented Turner Prize winners Richard Long and Keith Tyson, as well as Bill Viola and Mat Collishaw.

Together with Southern, Blain staged exhibitions at Haunch of Venison, including surveys of Abstract Expressionism^[3] and late twentieth century Russian art^[4] in New York and London respectively; in 2010 they put on an exhibition with Damien Hirst and Michael Joo in Berlin^[5]

In 2007 Blain and Southern sold Haunch of Venison^[6][7] to Christie's International plc. However, they remained within the business and continued to run the gallery until they both departed to launch a new gallery, BlainSouthern, in 2010. Blain|Southern was originally based at 21 Dering Street, but moved to 4 Hanover Square in October 2012.

In October 2010 Blain and Emmanuel Di Donna, formerly a vice chairman at Sotheby's Worldwide specialising in Impressionist and Modern art works, announced a further venture. Blain|DiDonna^[8] is located on the second floor of the Carlyle Hotel on Madison Avenue, in the space previously occupied by Ursus Books. It specializes in artworks by Impressionist, Modern and selected Contemporary artists. The gallery stages three very focused exhibitions a year, mixing modern and contemporary art.^[9] Blain|Di Donna staged its first exhibition in October 2011, Magritte: Dangerous Liaisons, a survey of the Belgian surrealist works which was described by the London Evening Standard as being "without doubt the most prestigious gallery show of 2011"^[10]

In April 2011 Blain|Southern opened a Berlin gallery with an exhibition by the British artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster. More recently, they have exhibited new work by Lawrence Weiner and Jannis Kounellis. The space, formerly the printing presses of Der Tagesspiegel, Germany’s liberal daily newspaper, is located on Potsdamer Strasse with a total floor space of 1,300 square metres.

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