The evening was held in recognition of New York’s 20 top philanthropists under 40, an illustrious list that included Eric Trump, Nigel Barker, Lauren Bush Lauren and Chelsea Clinton. While waitresses passed out dainty nibbles like grilled cheese fingers and spoonfuls of truffle risotto, the D.J. spun beats to a packed crowd who schmoozed and mingled under the light of two immense Venini glass chandeliers.

The festivities kicked off with speeches by Joseph Meyer and Peter Davis, members of our own Observer family, and from Eric Trump, who spoke eloquently about his involvement with the St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Under the auspices of the Eric Trump Foundation, Mr. Trump has raised nearly $6 million for St. Jude’s and the foundation has grown into one of the largest private charities in the country.

“We had the benefit through our company and through our network to do something for people less fortunate,” Mr. Trump explained to The Observer afterwards. “And in this case it's kids who just drew the short straw: it could happen to you and it could happen to me.”

Donald Trump had nothing but praise for his son’s charitable work. “Eric works so hard for so many charities and St. Jude’s in particular, he’s just got that in his blood," said Mr. Trump. "He loves it. And he’s raised a lot of money over the years and I’m very proud of him.”

And the Trumps weren’t the only philanthropy family making the rounds. Gorgeous cousins Amanda and Lydia Hearst—both on our top 20 under 40 list—were in attendance representing their respective charities.

Amanda Hearst started her charity, Friends of Finn, after purchasing her dog Finn from a pet store and discovering he came from a puppy mill. “We’ve gone on puppy mill raids and done more serious stuff but it’s also just been great to interact with the animals,” explained Ms. Hearst. Does Ms. Hearst carry him around in her purse, as is the fashion of another heiress who shall not be named? Ms. Hearst demurred. “He’s kind of chubby so he’d be like a weight on my shoulder,” she laughed.

We spoke with Lydia Hearst-Shaw about her work with Operation Smile, a worldwide charity that treats children with cleft palates and other facial deformities. “For every birthday I no longer accept gifts, I ask my friends to make a donation to Operation Smile,” explained Ms. Hearst, who has gone on three medical missions and helped launch the global offices in Sweden and Toronto. “When you actually go out in the world and realize you can make a difference, it’s a life altering experience,” she added.

We couldn’t help but recognize Lydia Hearst’s date, Kevin Connolly, and we had to stop ourselves from addressing him as "E" after his character on Entourage. But Mr. Connolly assured us that he has left Turtle and the gang well behind. His new hockey documentary, Big Shot, is premiering at ESPN Tribeca tomorrow. “I came here for Lydia’s thing tonight and tomorrow we’ll go to that,” he said with a laugh. “I have two suits.”

About an hour later we spotted Mr. Connolly’s former girlfriend, Nicky Hilton, and her new beau James Rothschild canoodling in the VIP table.  Hopefully the charitable spirit of the evening mitigated any awkward run-ins.

Jesse Cole, CEO of Haute Hippie, made our top 20 list for his work with Ronald McDonald House, which provides housing for children with cancer and their families while they receive treatment in New York City. There Mr. Cole spearheaded the formation of a new board of young philanthropists. Board members are required not only to give or get $10,000, but also to tour the house and interact with children and families. “I didn’t want it to be all about money. Mostly I wanted people to humanize their experience by meeting families and seeing the establishment,” Mr. Cole told us. “In my opinion it’s very easy to get people to join a worthy cause. But it’s not so easy to get people to do God’s work day in and day out.”

“He’s being far too modest,” said Bill Sullivan, CEO of Ronald McDonald House, adding that Mr. Cole’s work raised over half a million dollars last year.

As we tried to navigate the thick crowd forming at the bar, we chatted with art-world beauty and top 20 honoree Bettina Prentice, who has been involved for eight years with Coalition for the Homeless. Coalition provides emergency food, housing, crisis intervention and job training to the homeless in New York City. “There are so many people involved in charities on a macro level but I really want to be involved on a micro level,” explained Ms. Prentice. “I want to affect one person's life. And the Coalition really gives me the tools to do that.”

Ms. Prentice, a new mom to baby Henry, was visibly emotional as she told us about the work that Coalition does, especially a program in which the program will pay a family's back rent in order to save them from eviction. “I’m going to cry I’m so hormonal and emotional from the baby!” she said.

“She’s blaming it on the baby, she’s always like this when she talks about the Coalition,” chimed in Coalition Executive Director David Giffin.

Ultimately, despite some teary hormonal moms, the evening was a festive one, with everyone in generous spirits, copious free booze and more grilled cheeses than we can count. Who says that giving back can’t be fun?

"Welcome to Club Victoria," a voice echoed over the sound system. Then the voice said to turn off all mobile devices. "If you have to be on your phone during a show like this, you have other problems."

The highlights were extensive and hard to pick out, or even distinguish, from the entirety of the show. The Victoria's Secret models came out dressed like sailors, peacocks, cowgirls, Nascar pit crews, boxers, Amazon princesses and their natural angel garb — all while managing to wear basically nothing at all, of course. The country club scenery featured Aryan clones sculpted like Greek statues, while jungle scenery featured dark-skinned men with face paint dancing with arms akimbo. The closest the thing came to understatement was when the models just wore underwear.

Akon sang a song while endless pairs of endless legs walked up and down the runway next to him. Katy Perry belted "Firework" as sparkly purple mushroom clouds somehow clung to her as a dress. Vin Diesel fist-pumped in the front row the entire time.

When the spectacle ended, balloons fell from the rafters and lilted unnoticed onto the heads of the unsuspecting audience. No one knew the balloons were falling, because every set of eyes was locked on the line of models exiting the stage.

Outside, The Observer ran into Adrian Grenier. We asked if he knew any of the models in a personal way.

"No," he said. Then he paused. "Well, Alessandra was in "Entourage," but I don't really know her beyond that."

He didn't elaborate. 

We told him we'd see him at the after party, at Lavo. An assistant whisked him into a car and we walked to the 6 train.

At 10:46 p.m. we got a text saying that Paris Hilton had arrived at Lavo. The subterranean rock-lined den beneath the restaurant of the same name was already air-tight, and the only breathing room was reserved for the row of bottle-service-clad tables. There were Victoria's Secret models tending bar, Victoria's Secret models walking around with strawberry and vanilla Stoli cocktails, Victoria's Secret models dancing with Russell Simmons, and Victoria's Secret models offering trays of tuna tartare. Also, the TVs played the tape of that night's Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Michael Bay was there.

Then Paris Hilton arrived, and everything changed. Derek Blasberg, nominally an editor at Style.com but really just a runway and party attendee, escorted her to her table, where her sister Nicky and chilled bottles of Champagne awaited. As flash bulbs popped and smokers stealthily lit cigarettes, we greeted Paris Hilton.

"I thought it was fantastic as always," she told The Observer, of the show. "I love Katy Perry, she really rocked it tonight."

What about your budding music career, Paris?

"Well, I'm finishing my new album right now, so next year."

Any plans to play at, say, the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show?

"I think it would be an honor."

Katy Perry arrived shortly after and took over a nook beside Akon, Maroon 5, and their respective entourages. When the DJ started spinning "Sexy Bitch," on which Akon sings the hook, his crew and the people around him began shouting — "Yeah, 'Kon! Sing it, 'Kon!" — until he propped himself up on the seat and danced, pointing to the crowd. Later, when "California Gurls" came on, Katy Perry climbed on the ledge beside the table and let everyone marvel at her, hovering above them like a busty, elegant figurehead on an old ship.

The Observer spoke with Katy later in the night. Well — we asked about her performance but she smiled that big cartoon smile and said she wasn't doing interviews. We turned around to find that we were actually standing at Maroon 5's table, where perenially stubbled lead singer Adam Levine snuggled with girlfriend Anne Vyalitsyna. Anne Vyalitsyna is very much one of the Victoria's Secret angels, and very much stunning in person. She is both wonderful and amazing, Mr. Levine assured us. 

Then, in that same scrum of female beauty and rock star excess, we found Twitter co-founder Evan Williams drifting in the middle. We had seen him before standing with partner Biz Stone — who appears in commercials for party-sponsor Stoli — talking to Adrian Grenier, who had twitpic'd himself grooving on the Lavo dancefloor earlier that night. We asked if there were any big names at the party who had yet to jump on the Twitter bandwagon. Paris? No, she has a Twitter, Evan told us. 

"Wait, Paris Hilton is here?" he asked.

We nodded, pointed directly behind him, and then Twitter co-founder Evan Williams had a chat with Paris Hilton.

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234 

Later that evening, after hopping around the packed Soho streets for Fashion's Night Out, we found ourselves in an even more aggressive mob scene: the line of people desperate to join us at the Pop magazine party at Don Hill's. Dubbed the party of the week before it even happened, the bash at the new venture from nightlife barons Nur Khan and Paul Sevigny attracted the evening's biggest names. As Iggy Pop rocked on the stage, Gwen Stefani sat perched on a ledge cradled by husband Gavin Rossdale; Mary-Kate Olsen stood on a bench to make up for her height; and Nicky Hilton chatted to the woman of the hour, Pop editor in chief Dasha Zhukova, girlfriend of one of the world's richest men, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.

Of course, Chloë Sevigny wouldn't miss out. She had on a T-shirt and jean skirt befitting the gritty Don Hill's feel, and told The Observer that her brother's place would be the city's new hot spot. "It's what it was like at the Beatrice, and it's probably been missing since the Beatrice," she said. (What she didn't say, of course, was that the Beatrice Inn was closed in 2008 for overcrowding and "inadequate means of egress"--problems that hopefully will not plague Don Hills.)

On Saturday night, at the after-party for Charlotte Ronson's spring collection, Ms. Ronson, wearing a fitted, frilly blue dress, told us she was feeling good after her show, and said the rest of her week will be filled with "meetings--hopefully positive ones!" Her twin sister, Samantha, explained the personal significance of her final musical selection from the show, Lisa Loeb's "Stay": "That was an ode to one of my sister's and my best friends from when we were kids. She died a few years ago, and that was like our song together." Rashida Jones, on the other hand, wasn't feeling chatty, but she was clearly thirsty, as we witnessed her pour a hefty amount of vodka straight from the bottle into a empty coconut-water carton.

More action at Alexander Wang's party. The young designer topped his gas station soiree from last year's Fashion Week with a full carnival, built from scratch in a parking lot at 18th Street and 10th Avenue. Dree Hemingway, Terry Richardson and Agyness Deyn all turned up for the pulled pork sandwiches and skee ball.

The wildly enthusiastic Mr. Wang talked to us for a few moments, but didn't have time to stay put. "Will you walk with me to the bar?" he said as we dodged the cameras and flashbulbs. "We need alcohol! We need alcohol! Sorry!"

We asked Mr. Wang, who had on a black T-shirt, black shorts and black sneakers, about the theme for his over-the-top party. "The carnival is the new performance. Everyone can be a performer now."

We asked him to elaborate. "I just want people to have fun," he said. "Just get drunk, have fun, have a good time."

Our fashion crawl came to a close on Sunday night at the Tommy Hilfiger 25th Anniversary after-party, where we got a little literary with Mad Men's Christina Hendricks. "I just finished The Way the Crow Flies, which I absolutely loved," she said. Next on her night stand is One Hundred Years of Solitude, which she's started three times but never made it past the first chapter. "I know it's going to be worth it if I just go for it. ... I know the payoff will be there," Ms. Hendricks said. We also ran into Kelly Osbourne, who told us she was looking forward to hearing the evening's musical performers, the Strokes, play for the first time in New York since 2006. "Before there was the Strokes, I really liked *NSYNC and, like, really big pop music. And then the Strokes came out and they are what made me change my taste, I guess you could say. In my generation, I think that happened with a lot of people."

Asked what his favorite moment of the party was, Mr. Hilfiger said, "Having all of my friends there, including Jennifer Lopez, Bradley Cooper, Rebecca Romijn, Jason Lewis, Lenny Kravitz, to celebrate with me, and the Strokes' performance. It was one of the best nights of my life."

editorial@observer.com

Sarah Jessica Parker made her grand entrance soon after, and made her way to the front row by way of a blockade of bodyguards. She ended up next to Barry Diller and just two over from Anderson Cooper — who, when we approached, put his hand on our shoulder and kindly declined to talk. 

Nicky Hilton was also wandering around for her seat, wearing a yellow-splotched dress that was a bit more vibrant than the all-black affair she wore at Don Hill's for the Pop magazine party, where she spent the night up on a bench with Dasha Zhukova. We asked what she thought of Iggy Pop's violent set, during which he damned all the pretty faces in the audience to hell. Nicky said she's a fan.

"It was very, very crowded, but it was fun," she told us. "He's a legend!"

The event ended with Ms. von Furstenberg eschewing the customary smile and wave from the designer that usually comes after the final procession of models, in favor of a full lap around the two-pronged runway. She did, though, make one stop on her way: a quick hello and laugh with Sarah, Barry and Anderson.

Too bad Iggy Pop doesn't give a fuck about your reason.

"I think we're all aware it's Fashion Week in New York City," Iggy growled to the mass of beautiful attendees. "Just remember, fashion people, your pretty face is going to hell."

That set the tone for what can only be described as a raucous bash at Paul Sevigny's just-opened and hotly anticipated new project, Don Hill's. The civilized Soho shop-hopping of earlier that night was like a far-off memory now that Iggy and the Stooges had plugged in.

The place had a very tough door. Even with an invite, The Observer had to fight doormen, a police squad and a crew of performers on stilts to get into the spot. Even Patrick McMullan had some trouble breaking through the fray to secure his entrance. But once inside, we had crawled into a graffiti-soaked, smokey, punked-out, porn-on-the-walls sin den where the actresses, pop icons and models had cast off the sterile runways in favor of bopping around to rock's original purveyor of violence, Iggy Pop. 

The Misshapes spun James Brown and other soul classics as roadies wheeled in gear and sound-checked, and everyone took full advantage of the open bar. As start time approached, Gwen Stefani sat perched on a ledge, cradled by hubby Gavin Rossdale — who, like most of the rockers of the last 40 years, owes his entire forgettable musical career with the band Bush to The Stooges. Terry Richardson was drinking a beer in those gray-rimmed glasses, his camera slung over his shoulder. Nicky Hilton sat up with Ms. Zukhova. There was the expected beard-wearing contingent and many of the girls were dressed as though they had come stright from uptown. 

We found artist Jeff Koons nursing a drink over toward the back, and asked him about Iggy's influence on his own art. 

"I've always loved his work," Mr. Koons told us. "I put an image on the top of a yacht, on Dakis Joannou's boat—it's called Guilty, it's a big yacht in the mediterraenean. There's an image of Iggy there, on top. I think Iggy's like a god, like a greek god. When people move you to that level they're like Apollo or Dionysus."

Photographer and downtown art favorite Ryan McGinley had on a zipper-heavy leather jacket and skinny black tie. We deadpanned to him about whether he was excited or not for the show.

"Hell yeah! What are you crazy?" he told us, adding that he's seen Iggy perform three times. 

Minutes later the man himself came onstage, launching into the title cut off Raw Power, the loudest album ever recorded. Then, as the guitarist hammered the spitfire riff to "Search and Destroy," we looked down to find Mary-Kate Olsen — or was it Ashley? Don Hill's is a dark and hazy place — right next to us, trying to crane her neck to see Iggy. Gwen Stefani, still perched on a bench and wearing that deep red lipstick, nodded along with some of the tunes and occasionally closed her eyes, swaying. At Iggy's insistence, an unruly moshpit broke out, giving him a chance to do some stage-diving and crowd-surfing. We saw McGinley right in the thick of it.

Oh, also, The Stooges were a revelation. Somehow all the decades of heavy drug use turned Iggy into a promethean marvel — he pranced, jumped, yelled, spat, and sounded not a inch out of his prime. The power of it all forced the crowd into full-on Doubting Thomas mode: they reached out their hands, because they had to touch him to believe he was real.

On the other end of Don Hill's, Paul Sevigny was standing atop the bar, not far from two girls stripped to their undewear who were also elevated and dancing. Eventually the bartenders started spraying water all over them, and Mark Hunter AKA the Cobrasnake — who was wearing the same "ironic" American Online cap he had rocked the night before at the Chanel Soho opening — was on hand to capture this wholesome moment for posterity. 

After the set ended many of the big names headed out, leaving a crowd that was mostly hip skinny kids dancing to Gang of Four (which is still pretty cool). Before we called it a night, we chatted up the lovely Chloë Sevigny, who will probably be hanging around her brother's new place quite a bit. 

"It feels kind of wild in here!" Chloë told us. "I was here last night as well and it just had a little sense of anarchy that I feel like New York is missing. I also think that it's really great because the crowd is really young and old, like, it's super mixed. It's what it was like at the Beatrice, and it's probably been missing since the Beatrice."

And so we can add Don Hill's to the long list of places deemed "The New Beatrice." But this time, with the backing of Paul, the endorsement of Chloë and a little help from Iggy Pop, we might be ready to choose a true successor. 

The modest Ms. Dexter-Jones covered her face with her hands as she burst into laughter from the attention and headed down the long, white, floor-level runway.

That wasn't the only thing people were screaming about. Before the show began, there was an enormous hysteria over seating. (Something to do with the Ronsons' PR reps not assigning everyone a specific seat and every person thinking they were more important than everyone else in the front row.)

Students and friends of the designer overfilled the tent at Bryant Park, and the few socialites and celebrities that did arrive mere moments before the show began were not happy that there wasn’t an entire row for each of them.

However, heiress Nicky Hilton arrived promptly. She was wearing a Charlotte Ronson denim sleeveless mini dress, but she was unable to identify what season it was from. “We both grew up in the city,” Ms. Hilton said with a blank stare, when asked how she knew Ms Ronson.

The much-anticipated arrival of actress Lindsay Lohan never happened. Perhaps this means that her turbulent relationship with the designer’s sister, who was DJ-ing the show, is off-again. But like the person sitting behind the Transom said, who can keep track anymore?

Do the Hilton sisters need books on staying thin? "They're in the book!" said Ms. Frankel. "You know, I used to baby-sit Nicky and Paris. Actually, you're the first person I've told that to."

Come again?

"Kathy Hilton's sister, Paris and Nicky's aunt, is a very, very good friend," said Ms. Frankel.

So what were the Hilton sisters like to baby-sit? "It's all in the book, it's all there," she said. "I included them because they're such a good example of good eating. You know, they're not obsessed with food-they sometimes eat a cheeseburger."

But a Nicky Hilton fashion show isn’t really about the clothes anyway, and the front row didn’t disappoint. Instead of Kate Bosworth and Demi Moore, we had Jenna Jameson and Brandon Davis, but hey, this was different! Also spotted were Russell Simmons, Trevor Rains and Richie Rich of Heatherette, Arden Wohl, Amanda Hearst, and Olivia Palermo. We spied no Vogue editors (though on Friday at Sabyasaschi we’d heard a publicist imploring Meredith Melling Burke to come, or at least send someone).

Parents Rick and Kathy, seated front row, seemed almost unable to contain their pride. “We’re over the moon!” Kathy told The Transom moments before the show started. Nicky, she said, had spent the day “pacing. She was up in our hotel room, we were in hers… She’s just so excited!” Rick, meanwhile, wore a staid gray suit and filmed nearly everything on his camera, from the other people in the front row to the models. A few seats down, Ms. Wohl, wearing what looked to be a large diamond bracelet on her head, talked up Mr. Simmons (oh, to have been a fly on that green t-shirt). Across the runway, Mr. Davis had his cell phone attached to his ear. The only thing missing, really, was the other Ms. Hilton.

“I was really pleasantly surprised,” said Ms. Palermo aftewards, adding that she had especially liked the blazers. “It’s been wonderful,” she said of Fashion Week more generally. “I haven’t been racing all around, I’ve been very selective, and what I’ve seen has been quite good.”

And what has been the best? “The Tommy Hilfiger party, and the Ports 1961 show!” she said, hastening to add: “And Nicky.”

“The art world today is much more of a business than it was in the 70’s,” said Mirabelle Marden, the 28-year-old co-owner of the Lower East Side’s Rivington Arms gallery and, as the daughter of abstract art’s éminence grise, Brice Marden, genuine downtown royalty. “It’s all just so much bigger now.”

Ms. Marden and her business partner, Melissa Bent, held court at Miami’s NADA art fair this past weekend. Much of Rivington Arms’ featured work had already been sold during NADA’s opening hours, with collectors leaving a trail of sale-signifying red dots in their wake.

With prices ranging from $800 to $4,000, Rivington Arms’ wares were bargains. Many had been produced by artists just barely out of college and into their legal drinking years. Collectors’ cult of youth, meet the new professionalism.

“Art students have a different way of approaching their art now,” Ms. Marden said. “They can envision having a career.”

To sharpen that contrast, she need only look to her own father. At 68, he’s been saluted with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, on view until Jan. 15, 2007. This fall saw him hired by the Gap to model their T-shirts and personify the chain’s, ahem, “heritage in self-expression and individuality.”

But that hardly happened overnight. Mr. Marden dropped out of hotel-management school in 1958, married the striking Pauline Baez—sister to folk singer and then–Bob Dylan paramour Joan—and enrolled in Yale’s M.F.A. program. As he quipped last month on Charlie Rose, his original inspiration was simple: “I went into painting to meet those beautiful women that I used to see in Greenwich Village back in the 60’s.”

But in 1963, that Ivy degree had yet to resemble its current license to print money. Mr. Marden spent the next few years futilely mailing out teaching-position applications, floating from sister-in-law Joan’s California spread to father-in-law Albert’s Paris apartment, hanging with that era’s underground luminaries and, by his own admission, smoking copious amounts of marijuana.

It wasn’t until the end of the decade, following a divorce and his subsequent remarriage to Helen Harrington (now a painter as well), that Mr. Marden would blossom into an iconic top earner.

Along the way, his daughter Melia would become something of an intellectual sensualist. Robert Mapplethorpe would snap Melia Marden as a naked toddler in 1983. She would go on—at the age of 14—to interview Fran Lebowitz in Interview, then to graduate Harvard, where she designed costumes, in 2003, and to attend the French Culinary Institute—as well as to write, briefly, on fashion for Time.

Older daughter Mirabelle followed a more direct route. After graduation from Sarah Lawrence College, she and her classmate, Ms. Bent, opened Rivington Arms on the Lower East Side. “I knew I wanted to be close to art, and that was the neighborhood I felt most comfortable in,” she said. “It sounds strange to say we were meeting artists socially, but we weren’t scouting for them. We were just meeting everybody who was coming out of school at the same time as us.”

Rivington Arms drew a wealth of positive notices. Ms. Marden ascended to “It” girl status—shadowed by Patrick McMullan’s camera, profiled in Vogue, even christened the dour face of Manhattan’s “New Bohemians” by The New York Times Magazine this past fall.

This year, Rivington Arms was one of the last galleries to physically move their art inside their NADA booth, ostentatiously traipsing past their already-prepared fair neighbors, said one New York–based NADA gallery owner. The intended message seemed to be: We don’t have to hustle.

“Mirabelle shows good artists, and she obviously cares about making strong, young aesthetic statements,” said the dealer. “But she always wants to look like she’s never trying too hard, like it’s all so effortless.”

During Art Basel Miami Beach, Ms. Marden supped one evening at a private dinner hosted by Jimmy Choo bigwig Tamara Mellon, breaking bread with über-dealer and longtime family friend Larry Gagosian, blue-chip collector Aby Rosen, auction-house head Simon de Pury and—because South Beach party regulations apparently mandate the presence of at least one Hilton sister at all times—Nicky Hilton.

But the next night was decidedly more in keeping with her program. Ms. Marden hosted a fête for filmmaker Arden Wohl—a recent N.Y.U. grad, natch—with indie-rock darlings Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and what seemed like half of Williamsburg in attendance.

Ms. Marden’s downtown imprimatur seems as crucial to some of her artists’ popularity as their actual talent. Hanna Liden’s horror-flick-infused photos have an undeniable power, but many of her extremely young artists are just coming into their own. Will she and her stable “graduate” to the next level—or must they at all?

This year, NADA co-founder and Chelsea gallerist Zach Feuer, also 28, set up shop at Art Basel proper.

“NADA was always meant to be a launching pad for new galleries,” he said. “I wanted to help them develop the confidence to be able to say, ‘No, I’m not going to give you a 40 percent discount just because you’ve never heard of the artist.’”

So would he recommend that Rivington Arms jump from NADA to Basel next year? “Definitely,” he said with a chuckle.

Ms. Marden seemed a bit coyer about membership in the new establishment. True, she’d already moved her gallery from its namesake address to larger digs on East Second Street. Perhaps she’d find it uncomfortable operating so close to her father’s world? After all, the Basel fair was filled with his paintings, including one solid gray canvas being offered by New York gallerist Nick Acquavella for a cool $1.7 million. Could she envision herself someday selling seven-figure work?

“I’m not taking that bait,” Ms. Marden said. “I’ve never wanted to be judged solely by my last name. That’s why we didn’t name the gallery Marden-Bent.” She paused and wrinkled her nose. “Besides, that would’ve sounded too uptown.”