Gavlak Gallery

“I’m not interested in trends, and I never have been. I’m interested in artists who have studied the history of art, who understand art, and artists who go to museums and actually look at art, because that’s what I do.”

– Miss Sarah Gavlak, Crave Magazine, 2015

GAVLAK is a bi-coastal contemporary art gallery with locations in Palm Beach, Florida (flagship location) and Los Angeles, California. Founded by Sarah Gavlak in 2005, the gallery represents over twenty artists both nationally and internationally based. Since the beginning, GAVLAK has maintained a focus on women and LGBTQ artists. As with any business, the art market is ever changing, but in Miss Gavlak’s 18 years of business she has kept a razor sharp focus on what matters most to her; championing art history and the academic aspects of art to both aspiring and longstanding collectors.

While working in New York and visiting Palm Beach in the early 2000’s, Gavlak saw the need for a serious contemporary art gallery to serve the community of collectors in that area. Thus, in 2005, Gavlak relocated to West Palm Beach and opened her first gallery. The inaugural exhibition was of new works by Wade Guyton, and the show marked one of the artist’s first solo gallery exhibitions in America. GAVLAK Palm Beach also presented early exhibitions of artists Marilyn Minter and Aleksandra Mir, among others. In 2008, collector and Palm Beach resident Jane Holzer invited GAVLAK Palm Beach to move to one of her properties in the tony section of Worth Avenue. For the last ten years, that space on Worth Avenue was the home base for GAVLAK in Palm Beach. More recent solo exhibitions at GAVLAK Palm Beach include Andrew Brischler, Maynard Monrow, and Rob Wynne.

Sarah Gavlak has maintained a high level of engagement with Palm Beach’s contemporary art community since relocating there in 2005. In 2018 she founded New Wave Art Wknd, a dedicated collectors weekend in Palm Beach with a focus on thought-provoking dialogue between collectors, artists and curators. The second edition of New Wave Art Wknd (NWAW) will take place December 6 to 8 in partnership with Pittsburgh based non-profit organization, City of Asylum. New Wave Art Wknd aims to showcase the contemporary art scene that is flourishing in Palm Beach and address critical issues of our time—with an emphasis on inclusivity and immigration.