So one of the questions I am very often asked is:
“What does Feroz mean and why is your gallery named Feroz?”
This is a bit of a long story, so I will write it here for the record books.
When I started my career as an art dealer a few years back it was based on a discussion I had with my parents Gerd and Christine about how to manage the rather large collection of vintage photography that my father had amassed during his 30+ years of working as a gallerist, curator and dealer. Almost as a joke I said
“Why don’t I open a gallery?”
Said, done. So the new idea needed a name. My father then said that I could not/ should not use the name Sander Gallery as it was his gallery name and it was also to close to August Sander and would lead people to think that I only have works by August Sander, which is certainly not the case. So I went searching…
I am a big fan of the Ferus Gallery in LA which was run by Irving Blum and Walter Hopps. Walter Hopps (who would be here in 20 minutes) was a close friend of William Christenberry who, in turn, was an artist my father represented in Washington DC and New York City before he moved to Germany. My father helped to connect Bill with Peter MacGill and Peter agreed to represent Bill.
I started to look for words that had no specific meaning in the art world and found the persian word Feroz, which means successful. I thought this was a wonderful omen, and as the name sounded similar to Ferus I decided to go with it.
I later discovered that the word means wild, beas tlike and uncontrollable in Spanish. At this point it was too late, and I rather liked the combination of meanings.
So there is the story of the name.
