Clad in a slim-lined black puffer and pair of New Balance sneakers, gallerist James Cope muses over the placement of a fiberglass sculpture by Eli Ping.
Where the sculpture lands may not seem critical, but today, everything is important as Cope preps for “Sage in Bloom,” the inaugural exhibition in his new space on Alpha Road in Farmers Branch, the first gallery to bear his name.
A low-key force in the Dallas art scene, Cope is known for his extreme privacy and his innovative programming with a heavy focus on painting.
His initial gallery concept, And Now, began in 2014 in an old house in the Cedars before ultimately landing in a collector’s building in the Design District in the then-under construction River Bend development.
“I was there for three years, but everything was changing,” says Cope, 48. He and his wife moved to the Preston Forest neighborhood last year, and he remembers telling her: “Wouldn’t it be cool if I lived five minutes from the gallery and never had to get on the tollway again?”
Cope had his eye on the suite at 4885 Alpha Road, an empty storefront next to a botanical shop near his new home. That white cube space is now the James Cope Gallery, a stone’s throw from the Warehouse, a Howard and Cindy Rachofsky-funded art venue, and minutes from the remodeled T Bar M Racquet Club, where Cope will hold events and dinners.
“There’s a ton of stuff happening all around this area,” he says. “When I signed the lease, I told my wife, let’s celebrate and have some lunch. We went to Al Biernat’s, and I couldn’t believe it when we pulled up to the valet. It was like we were in Miami or LA — Maseratis, Jaguars and Porsches. I was like, wow, I’ve been sleeping on this; there’s a lot of stuff happening here!”
From the Cotswolds to George Michael
And Cope doesn’t sleep on much. Since his early years growing up middle class in the Cotswolds, a rural region of England, the curator and gallerist possessed an intuitiveness that allowed him to recognize opportunities as they arose.
His first exposure to art came with skateboarding. In the early 1990s, the then-teenage Cope was obsessed with American skate culture and music from the Wu-Tang Clan and rode a skateboard covered with Dali’s work. Even as he studied philosophy at Edinburgh College, he began to dabble in his eventual calling by throwing parties with DJs, art and dancing at night and installing artwork by day.
In 2003, a friend turned him onto a job opportunity that seemed tailor-made: a role as a guy Friday for the new Goss Gallery in Dallas, founded by pop star George Michael and his Texas native partner, Kenny Goss.
Along with the space’s new collections manager, Jessica Olsson (soon to become Jessica Nowitzki), Cope was thrust into the industry’s upper echelons. He began curating shows by Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin and dined at London’s finest bistros with Michael’s friends.
“I was like 26 or something,” Cope recalls. “You’d go to Cipriani or Claridge’s, and there would be paparazzi. Like, there’s Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow, Nigella Lawson is there and Salman Rushdie is there. Me and Jessica got to do a lot of that. I’ve got to say Kenny [Goss] was really generous. He treated everyone like we were on the same level, and he opened so many doors to me.”
From New York City to Dallas
As the Goss Gallery morphed into the star-studded Goss Michael Foundation with its benefits and galas, Cope felt ready to immerse himself in the big leagues, which merited a move to New York City.
“I wanted to be a serious curator and surround myself with serious art world people,” he says. “I built up a reputation from working with Kenny and George, so I moved in 2009 and helped a collector open up a gallery.”
Cope worked with Vladimir Roitfeld (the son of then-Vogue Paris editor Carine). Then, he took on the biggest job of his career, becoming the director of sales in America for the blue-chip Marlborough Gallery.
“That’s like going to Citadel or Deutsche Bank, wearing a suit every day. It’s so not me, and it was super stressful, so it didn’t last long. In that corporate environment, you’re pressured to sell things you might not truly believe in. If it’s just about money and selling something I don’t like, I could sell cars or work on Wall Street and make way more money. You’re doing this because it’s about creativity and helping people create the magic.”
Add in a Succession-style family dynamic at Marlborough, plus a long-distance relationship with his model girlfriend, Adrian Hilliard (now his wife), and Cope was at a tipping point. Then Hurricane Sandy hit. With no power or working subway near his Lower East Side apartment, he was nonetheless forced to put on a suit and bike to the gallery’s uptown HQ.
“I love New York, but you get that feeling that you could fall in the street and die, and nobody would care,” he says. “I was coming down to Dallas all the time. I still knew all the collectors, and I thought, I’m going to try and make a gallery work. The New Yorkers were like, ‘You’re committing [career] suicide,’ but I thought people would embrace me.”
Rebranding himself as a dealer-curator, he named his first space And Now, after the Monty Python line (“And now for something completely different”). Launching with a three-person show featuring Borden Capalino, Eli Ping and Rose Marcus, he anticipated setting the local scene on fire, which isn’t exactly what happened. Cope says it took until his participation in the Frieze Art Fair in 2017 for Dallas collectors to embrace him. But when they did, they did it wholeheartedly.
Opening day
At the gallery’s informal daytime opening on Jan. 25, Howard Rachofsky was the first person through the door. Gallerists Barry Whistler, Bart Keijsers Koning and Akim Monet popped in to show their support, as did the art adviser for Thomas Hartland-Mackie, a local CEO and collector. This patronage isn’t ephemeral. Rachofsky, in particular, has been a cheerleader for Cope’s vision, even suggesting he move his art fair, the Dallas Invitational, from the Fairmont Hotel to the Mansion on Turtle Creek. Running April 10 through 12, the 2025 edition of the 3-year-old fair will feature panel discussions plus an art fund benefiting the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
Cope has equally big plans for an imprint published by American Art Catalog. The first release will be a late spring monograph of Michelle Rawlings’ dreamily girly paintings.
With a philosophy of “putting one foot in front of the other” throughout his career, Cope seems poised to age gracefully as he continues to make his business sustainable.
“There are a couple of gallerists I know in their 60s who are still throwing parties on the Lower East Side and wearing Supreme gear, and I’m very aware I don’t want to be that,” he says. “I feel like people retire from something they didn’t like doing, but I love what I’m doing: putting on shows, hanging out with artists and selling these beautiful objects to people. There’s nothing to retire from; you can keep doing it forever.”
And as for that Eli Ping sculpture? Cope chose the perfect spot. It sold on the first day.
Details
James Cope Gallery is open Wednesday through Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. at 4885 Alpha Road, Suite 120, Farmers Branch. Appointments are advised.