At 91, Marlana Hammond Keynes reflects on her legacy of fostering artists in Columbus

For the first time in five decades, longtime central Ohio gallerist Marlana Hammond Keynes did not spend her autumn presenting exhibitions, making art-studio visits or representing artists.

Those activities — the trappings of running a small, independently owned gallery — were part of the daily life of Keynes since at least the early 1970s, when she first opened a small gallery space in the basement of her father’s men’s clothing store in Lancaster.

Since then, Keynes owned, operated and curated a series of much-admired galleries throughout the region: After running what came to be known as Hammond Galleries in Lancaster, in 1997, she established Hammond Harkins Galleries in Bexley.

Then, in 2015, Hammond Harkins moved to the Short North, where it became a pillar of the area’s robust collection of galleries. In September, however, Keynes closed the gallery, ending a career that, in longevity and influence, is arguably unrivaled in the central Ohio visual-arts scene.

“I miss the gallery,” Keynes, 91, said in an interview with The Dispatch in late November in her hometown of Lancaster, where she has resided for most of her life. Keynes and her grown daughter, Laura Hammond-Keynes, were staying at the home of Keynes’ lifelong friend Joyce Herrold, who invited them to spend the holidays with her.

“I miss the artists,” Keynes said. “I miss the people that I knew all those years.”

Nannette V. Maciejunes, the former executive director of the Columbus Museum of Art, describes Keynes as a pioneer.

“Hammond Harkins was one of the foundational galleries in Columbus,” Maciejunes said. “It was there — it was always there. They were always trying stuff.”

End of an era

On Sept. 5, the gallery filed paperwork with the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas to begin the process of its dissolution and liquidation of its assets; the documents, filed by Hammond Harkins’ attorney Richard K. Stovall, said that the company’s business had, since 2020, been impacted by a multitude of factors, including shutdowns stemming from COVID-19.

A motion filed by the gallery also sought the naming of a receiver tasked with distributing gallery assets to creditors, which the court granted.

The gallery itself is for sale, and according to a Facebook posting earlier this month, remaining inventory can still be purchased by the public.

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Keynes describes her decision in simple, straightforward terms.

“It was time that I retire and let the artists go to younger representatives,” Keynes said.

Laura Hammond-Keynes points to several factors that affected business at Hammond Harkins, including streetscape improvement projects near the gallery, which was located at 641 N. High St., that impacted sidewalk access.

“And, following that was COVID,” Keynes said.

Keynes’ colleagues describe the challenges of operating a gallery during those times.

“The foot traffic wasn’t the same, and then I think with that change, the Short North changed,” said Sherrie Hawk, whose Short North gallery, Sherrie Gallerie, closed in 2022. “I love the Short North — it’s a vibrant community — but it has changed. It’s a younger generation’s Short North and a different vibe: restaurants, night life.”

Artistic beginnings

By any measure, though, Keynes has come a long way since her early days.

The daughter of William Hammond and his wife Lovetta, Marlana and her older sister, LaVetta, were encouraged to take an interest in the arts.

“They took us to museums,” Keynes said. “My father was a retailer, so he’d go to New York and buy. We’d go with him and go to museums and galleries.”

Keynes enrolled at Ohio State University, where one of her teachers was famed pop-art painter Roy Lichtenstein.

“He was brilliant,” Keynes said of Lichtenstein. “He was very knowledgeable about contemporary art, which a lot of professors had not approached. . . . It was exciting to be in his class because it was forward-thinking.”

Upon graduating in 1954, Keynes moved to New York. For a time, she worked at Lord & Taylor in the city.

“I was in retail because there weren’t too many jobs in the art market,” said Keynes, who again took advantage of her proximity to leading museums and intriguing galleries.

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“It was a fabulous experience,” she said. “The museums and the galleries were beginning to really accept some of the wildest things in the world, but it was exciting.”

In 1963, Keynes — who, by then, had been married and divorced — returned to Lancaster. Armed with enthusiasm, she persuaded her father to allow her to take over the basement of Hammond Clothiers, located at 203 S. Broad St. in Lancaster.

“He had a basement,” Keynes said. “It was really an interesting space. I thought, ‘This would be a good art gallery.’”

Dad was dubious.

“He said, ‘Well, I never thought about that, and I have reservations, but if you think it will work, go ahead,’” she recalled. “That was the beginning.”

At the outset of the basement gallery’s opening in 1973, Keynes carried the work of talented but realistic painters, including the maritime paintings of John Stobart and the landscapes of Bob Timberlake (later a noted furniture designer).

“I knew that I wanted to get into the contemporary field,” said Keynes, who, in the 1980s, took over the third-floor space of Hammond Clothiers. That gallery was filled with the sort of cutting-edge artists that came to be synonymous with Keynes.

“She and (her sister) LaVetta went to England, to Boston,” Laura Hammond-Keynes said. “They would just recruit all of these artists from all over the world.”

Bringing the art to Columbus

But Keynes had a desire to bring her artists beyond Fairfield County.

“That’s when I began to think, ‘I’ve got to take this to Columbus — not the men’s store, but the galleries,’” Keynes said.

At first in partnership with William Harkins, Keynes launched Hammond Harkins Galleries in 1997.

“We did some really wonderful contemporary art shows,” said Keynes, who also maintained a gallery in Edgartown, Massachusetts, from 1998 to 2008.

During these years, Keynes helped introduce the work of Dennison W. Griffith, Paul Hamilton and Aminah Robinson, each among the most prominent — and the boldest — homegrown artists central Ohio had to offer.

“I find it a shame: there are so many good galleries in Columbus, and people feel they have to go to New York and they don’t — they really don’t,” Keynes said.

Both Griffith, the former president of the Columbus College of Art & Design, and Robinson, the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, have since passed away.

“I think it was incredibly vital for Aminah to have a gallerist here in Columbus that believed in her,” said Maciejunes, who, after Robinson’s death in 2015, established the Aminah Robinson Legacy Project, consisting of the artwork and other belongs that the artist had left to the (Columbus) museum.

“There’s a tribute to Marlana that’s part of the Presidential Suite 'RagGonNon,'” said Maciejunes, referring to an installation created to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama. “Marlana is honored inside that piece — there’s a reference to her.”

Keynes knows how valued she was by the artists she represented.

“I was not only the gallerist but (the artists) knew I had their interests at heart,” she said.

Moving to the Short North

In her 80s, Keynes pulled up stakes for the Short North, already home to numerous important galleries — including Lindsay Gallery and the Sharon Weiss Gallery — as well as the newly launched Pizzuti Collection.

“I could see that the Short North was going to become a really major arts center, which it has in some ways,” Keynes said. “It was time to move out of the suburbs and into the middle of the city.”

There, Keynes helped inspire new gallerists, including Sarah Gormley. In 2019, Gormley opened her namesake gallery, the Sarah Gormley Gallery, in the Short North.

“I had never owned or worked in a gallery before,” Gormley said. “Before I opened, I had conversations with several gallerists, including Marlana. I just walked in, and she was always at her desk. I introduced myself, and we had a quick conversation.”From that day forward, Gormley said, Keynes was something of a mentor.

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“She was so open and just entirely encouraging,” Gormley said.

Her daughter, Laura Hammond-Keynes, attests to her mother’s care and commitment.

“I’ve watched her work so hard and be so devoted,” Hammond-Keynes said. “She was always an island for all the people that she took care of.”

A proud legacy

Until the gallery’s closing, Keynes drove herself from Lancaster to the Short North every day. But, she reiterated, with the challenges the gallery faced — and the march of time — the day had come to move on.

“It’s better for the artists, and it’s better for me,” she said.

That doesn’t mean Keynes will stay away from the visual-arts community, which, she says, is far stronger than when she started.

“I want to keep up on the arts scene and see what’s new and what’s exciting,” Keynes said. “Because I’m retiring doesn’t mean that I’m giving up my interest in the arts. It’ll always be there.”

But the evolution in the arts in Columbus is at least partly attributable to Keynes’ own legacy, observers say.

“We have a lot of young gallerists who are willing to take on young contemporary artists,” Maciejunes said. “She set an example of that for people.”

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Hammond Harkins Galleries is closed but owner's passion for art endures