The Lives of Jeffrey Deitch

For the last two years in this city, ever since he was appointed director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles — and before that, for decades throughout the art world — Mr. Deitch was a constant and predictable art-world presence. Steely though soft-spoken, enigmatic to the point of appearing to be a cipher, dressed in trademark double-breasted bespoke suits and owlish eyeglasses made from buffalo horn, Mr. Deitch was a kind of art-world Zelig.