What it’s actually like
Most Scottsdale galleries sell new work for living artists. The Larsen Gallery sells art that has already had one owner. It is a consignment house for fine art, and for more than thirty years it has taken in paintings, prints, photography and sculpture from collectors, estates and trusts, priced them against the market and found them new homes. The gallery sits on North Bishop Lane, a short street a block west of Scottsdale Road between Second and Third streets, a little south of the Main Street galleries and easy to miss if you do not know it is there.
The inventory reads like a survey of the contemporary market rather than a single taste. On a given day the website shows a patinated bronze by the British sculptor Tony Cragg, a 1983 James Havard canvas, textile work by Kay Khan and mixed media by Sammy Peters, with prices published on most pieces, from a few thousand dollars into the tens of thousands. The emphasis is on contemporary artists who already have a gallery and auction record, which is what makes resale work.
Twice a year the room becomes an auction house. The Larsen Art Auction runs every April and October, live in the gallery and online, and it has grown into one of the state’s major contemporary sales: the spring 2026 auction reported a 94 percent sell-through, and the October 17, 2026 sale is billed as the gallery’s largest ever, with more than 400 works and a spotlight on Latin American and women artists.
What to buy
A contemporary painting at auction. The reason most collectors know the name. Preview in person, set a limit, bid in the room or online.
A print or a work on paper. Limited-edition graphics and drawings by established names are the accessible end of the inventory, and the best value on the secondary market.
Sculpture. The gallery takes it on consignment alongside paintings, and the auction previews are the time to see it at full scale.
Your own art, sold. For many visitors the useful service runs the other way: the gallery reviews consignments at no charge.
Parking, timing and the practical stuff
Bishop Lane is a quiet side street, so parking is easier than on the gallery blocks of Main Street; there is street and lot parking nearby, and the free Civic Center garage off Drinkwater Boulevard is a reasonable walk east across Scottsdale Road. The Old Town on foot note covers the downtown grid, and the Main Street Arts District is a few minutes north.
The gallery keeps Tuesday through Saturday, ten to five. The best times to go are the preview weeks before the April and October auctions, when the lots hang in the gallery and the catalogue goes live online; the fall 2026 catalogue went up in mid-September for the October 17 sale. Register to bid before auction day. If you are selling, use the online submittal form with photos and dimensions first, rather than arriving with a painting under your arm.
Thursday’s ArtWalk is centered on Main Street and Marshall Way rather than Bishop Lane, so the Larsen is a weekday or Saturday visit. Pair it with the spring Scottsdale Art Auction at the Legacy Gallery building if you want to see the Western market and the contemporary one in the same season.
Eat while you’re there
Uchi at Scottsdale Road and First Street is the nearest serious dinner. Goldwater Brewing and the beer garden at Brat Haus are a short walk south on Scottsdale Road for a post-auction drink. Los Olivos on Second Street has served Sonoran plates since the late 1940s, and the Cornish Pasty Co. on Goldwater Boulevard is the quick, cheap lunch.
How it got here
Scottsdale’s art market grew up on the primary side: galleries on Main Street and Marshall Way selling new work by living artists to winter residents, starting in the 1960s and organized into the weekly ArtWalk in 1975. A market that size eventually needs a second half, a place where those collections can be sold again when tastes change, houses are downsized and estates are settled. The Larsen Gallery has filled that role for more than thirty years, since at least the mid-1990s, as a gallery built on consignment rather than representation.
The auction grew out of the gallery. Holding a sale every April and October gave consignors a deadline and buyers an event, and over the years the Larsen Art Auction became a fixture of the Valley’s art calendar. Some sales have had a theme. In 2022 the gallery held an auction of Native American art and pottery that brought together work by some sixty Indigenous artists, the largest group of Indigenous art it had handled. By 2026 the spring sale was reporting a 94 percent sell-through and the fall sale was billed as the largest contemporary art auction in Arizona.
It is a different trade from the Main Street Arts District galleries a few blocks north, and a complementary one. Those rooms introduce artists; the Larsen tells you what their work is worth a decade later. For the Western side of the resale market, the Scottsdale Art Auction held each spring in the Legacy Gallery building is the counterpart; for a buyer learning the market, an afternoon at the Larsen preview is the cheapest education in town.