Wally Findlay; Art Gallery President

Wally Findlay, 92, president of the nation’s oldest family-owned art gallery, Wally Findlay Galleries International Inc. Born in Kansas City, Mo., he spent his life expanding the family art business established there in 1870 by his grandfather, William Wadsworth Findlay. The scion opened a gallery in Chicago in 1932 and another in Palm Beach, Fla., in 1961, with artist Salvador Dali personally attending a showing of his “Art in Jewels” collection. The Palm Beach gallery served as a springboard for launching Findlay internationally, and galleries in Paris and Tokyo followed. Findlay also opened galleries in New York and Beverly Hills, and diversified his business to include a frame-making firm and another that manufactured lights used in displaying paintings. In 1979, Findlay became one of a handful of American art dealers to receive France’s Croix de Chevalier de l’Ordre National due Merite for his contributions to French art. On Tuesday in West Palm Beach, Fla.