It took Marianne a while to find her way in the art world. She transferred to Middlebury College in Vermont, graduating in 1989 with a degree in art history, then tried to get lost—or find herself—in Borneo for several months. After that, she interned at ArtForum magazine and entered law school. She started her gallery in 1996, when she was 28. She worked out of her West Village apartment and got a bank loan for seed money. Her first artist, Lisa Yuskavage, was a tough sell. Some critics called her paintings of distorted naked women grotesque and misogynistic.

Yet from the start, Boesky understood what makes this market move. She raised Yuskavage’s profile by brokering the sale of one of her paintings to the Whitney Museum of American Art. But instead of cashing in on that coup and eagerly selling every Yuskavage painting she had, Boesky says she tightly controlled access to the artist’s work, even if it meant going into debt and paying the artist’s personal expenses. A prominent collector wanted a painting; Boesky said yes only after he agreed to offer it to a museum. A Yuskavage painting now fetches $1 million.

“Collectors love to compete,” says Boesky. “It’s part of why they collect—they want to score. You have to make them feel like they worked for it.”

The downside of turning a starving artist into a $1 million-per-canvas annuity is that artists can drop dealers at any time. Two years ago, Yuskavage split with Boesky, leaving her gallery. It was a double blow for Boesky—like getting fired from her job and losing a friend simultaneously.

Last year, Boesky gave Sotheby’s a Yuskavage painting that had hung in Boesky’s living room for eight years. Called Honeymoon, it sold last May for more than $1 million.

Gagosian’s interest in Murakami was bad news for Boesky. Few artists can resist Gagosian or his ability to make them money. Murakami confirmed the rumors last winter when he decided to show his newest work with Gagosian, whose uptown Manhattan gallery will feature the artist this spring. Asked about the often cold-blooded dealings of the art trade, Gagosian simply says, “It’s the last vestige of laissez-faire capitalism.”

One winter afternoon, Boesky is standing in Barnaby Furnas’ studio, watching him work on a canvas made of animal hide. “I have an idea to do this Michael Ovitz effigy painting,” he says, holding a photo of Ovitz—something he printed off a website—on top of the canvas. He is still angry about Heartbreak Ridge and plans to strike back with his brushes: painting Ovitz’s image on a dead animal’s skin and then covering the portrait with hexes and curses. “I’ve done all this research into the dark arts,” Furnas says, adding that he and Boesky have a special twist planned for this Ovitz portrait: They’ll sell it at auction.

Boesky says she thinks the painting will draw a lot of bidders. “The beauty of it being Mike Ovitz is that he has so many enemies, you can’t imagine how many people are going to want to throw darts at it,” she says, smiling, although her anger toward Ovitz has already begun to fade. After all, his sale of Heartbreak Ridge doesn’t seem to have damaged Furnas’ career. Boesky believes this revenge portrait will intrigue Ovitz more than insult him. “I think Mike will enjoy this,” she says. “We’ll probably make up over it.”

Kiss and make up they did, but not because of the portrait. Later, Boesky ran into Ovitz at a dinner party. “We were smushed together by someone interested in us coming back together,” she says. “We had a 45-­minute conversation. He said that he really regrets having sold the painting.”

In an email, Ovitz says the fight over Heartbreak Ridge was the result of a “broken line of communication” and that Boesky is “a terrific dealer.”

Boesky has to be relieved that the Ovitz tiff is behind her—the art business is tough enough without feuding with rich and acquisitive collectors. As for Furnas’ revenge portrait, Boesky and her art star have shelved it. For now.