Art dealer reopens in Earnest.

Earnest Bonner is back in the art business--and maybe back in the big time.

Bonner is a stock broker-turned art dealer who had one of the most interesting galleries of African and African-American art ever collected in Denver, all housed in an old Victorian house on York Street just off Colfax in the heart of the city.

He moved the gallery from there to Park Hill in the late '90s, and then closed the Park Hill gallery after it became financially clear that location, location, location was indeed a true business mantra. He couldn't generate the traffic necessary to sustain the business in the new quarters.

So Bonner went back to financial consulting until he could develop a new business model to peddle the art he collects and loves. He thinks he's found that model in new quarters for a gallery at Tamarac Square, in a vacated Gap store that provides a beautifully lit and spacious display space for the art he sells, which includes but is not limited to local artists like Ernie Barnes, Ed Dwight, Hermon Futrell and Yi Ping Zhang.

Zhang's name among those artists, all of whom have developed national and some international reputations, suggests part of Bonner's new business plan.

He now considers his gallery a market for global art, and pieces on display range from Asian and African to Caribbean and Latin American fine art, from folk art and antiques to modern painting and even jewelry.

But the big time is still a negotiating session or two away from Bonner.

When he had his old gallery, he used his reputation as an...