Gordon Allen Locksley—a private art dealer and collector of contemporary art—passed away quietly in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Feb. 1 after a brief illness, according to Legacy.com. He was 83.
Locksley was born in Chicago on Aug. 27, 1930, to William and Sheila Locksley. His grandparents came from Poland before World War II.
Locksley fondly remembered meeting many who came through Chicago, most notably Sophie Tucker. He met and became friends with Jimmy Epenstein, who was a famous interior designer in Chicago.
In 1954 in Minneapolis, he met George Shea, who was an associate professor in Japanese language and literature at the University of Minnesota. They started the Red Carpet Beauty Salon and Red Carpet Beauty College, and later launched the Locksley Shea Gallery. Artists such as Christo, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, Brice Marden, Ellsworth Kelly and Robert Rauschenberg all came for the opening night party of their exhibitions at the gallery.
In the 1970s, Locksley and his business partner left Minneapolis immediately for Rome, and never returned to live in the city. He moved to Cannes, France, and Paris; he returned to the United States in 1994 and settled in Palm Springs, Calif. In 1998, Mr. Locksley met Wayne Boeck and they moved to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. They lived in a high rise on the beach and married when same-sex marriages became legal in the United States.
He was very active with the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, loaning contemporary works of art for a private collector exhibition, “With You I Want to Live,” in 2010.
Kraeer-Fairchild Funeral Home made the arrangements. At Locksley’s request, there will be no memorial service, but his ashes will be scattered in Palm Springs.