Spinning Figure, 1949
Oil on canvas
42 3/4 × 13 7/8 inches
Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust

Berry Campbell Celebrates Women's History Month

Ida Kohlmeyer
VIDEO: Virtual Exhibition Walkthrough

Women of Abstract Expressionism 
Inventory Highlights
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Ann Purcell
Upcoming Exhibition: Kali Poems
View Works by Ann Purcell

Judith Godwin
Forbes Magazine: Add to Your list of '5 Women Artists' at These Museums Around The United States
by Chadd Scott

Charlotte Park
Client Testimonial: 
"Extremely gratifying to see Paul Kasmin Gallery's eye-opening summer show, Painters of the East End reviewed by Erin Kimmel in this month's Art in America . And smiled extra wide that AbEx talent Charlotte Park is written up in the same paragraph as — and holds her own with— Joan Mitchell. 'Park's virtuosic oil and crayon compositions (ca. 1965 and 1967) feature dendrite-like configurations in a palette of bright pinks, yellows and blues that appear frozen mid twist.' Ten years ago Christine Berry, owner of one of the most engaging and provocative galleries in Chelsea, Berry Campbell, thankfully introduced me to the work of Charlotte Park, who died in 2010 at age 92 in Montauk, where she lived and painted. She was the wife of artist James Brooks, supporting his career at the expense of her own, and dear friends and neighbors of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner." 
-Adam Beckerman
View Works by Charlotte Park 

Yvonne Thomas
Eazel Interactive Exhibition | Yvonne Thomas: Windows and Variations (1963-1965) 

Susan Vecsey
blue. 
Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York
View Works by Susan Vecsey

Jill Nathanson
LINEA: Studio Notes from the Art Students League of New York
Artist Snapshot: Jill Nathanson 

Perle Fine
What We See, How We See
Through April 2021
Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York
View Works by Perle Fine

Joyce Weinstein
Postwar Women
Curated by William Corwin
The Art Students League, New York
View Works by Joyce Weinstein

Perle Fine | The Accordment Series 
February 13 - March 14, 2020

By the mid-1970s, critic Thomas Hess acknowledged the critical favoritism shown to postwar male artists when he singled out the women of the Ninth Street Show as “sparkling Amazons.”

KATONAH, New York — The Ninth Street Show in 1951 is among the more enduring of the origin stories about New York’s postwar art scene, uniting the theme of artist solidarity to the ideal that art can be a vocation unsullied by money and fame.

As the story goes, painter Jean Steubing, working on behalf of her obscure New York artist-peers, secured gallery space in a vacated storefront on East Ninth Street near Broadway. The resulting exhibition was curated by Leo Castelli with substantial input from artists, around 60 of whom were included in the hastily assembled roster. History — or legend — holds that the show was a breakthrough. Museum curators and uptown collectors attended and began to acquire this brave new art. Art reviewers noticed, too. And as the 1950s progressed, New York surpassed Paris as the art-making capital of the world.

In reality, the tale of the Ninth Street Show did not end quite happily ever after. Only a handful of the Ninth Street artists gained increased recognition from it. Even fewer saw any sales. Still, postwar New York accommodated these artists who, for the most part, operated without institutional affiliations. In the 1950s, a downtown loft could be rented for about $30 a month — the equivalent of about $400 in today’s money. So most Ninth Street artists soldiered on in obscurity, getting by through shitty day jobs or family money while finding morale boosts and genuine recognition through their own cooperative galleries. Many finally left the city. Some, like Steubing herself, abandoned art-making entirely.

What do Elaine de Kooning, Monir Farmanfarmaian, Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Bourgeois, and Faith Ringgold have in common? They all studied at the Art Students League of New York—and they are all featured in a new show at the school highlighting the accomplishments of its many women students.

Titled “Postwar Women,” the exhibition, curated by Will Corwin, features more than 40 women who studied at the school between 1945 and 1965. “It seemed like the obvious choice because before the war, most of the women students here were wealthy or had family who supported them as artists,” Corwin told Artnet News at the exhibition’s opening. “During this period, you actually get working-class women becoming artists. And of course, you get the Abstract Expressionists.”

Corwin has put together an impressive selection of works by well-known alumna—Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, and Louise Nevelson are also among the big names—alongside examples by an intriguing array of artists who haven’t yet been widely recognized for their talents.

“The league’s list of famous graduates is like everybody you’ve ever heard of,” Corwin said. For him, the curatorial challenge was balancing expectations: ensuring that all the major names were in place while still creating opportunities for viewers to discover new artists.

The essay for Joan Marter’s exhibition at Guild Hall, “Abstract Expressionism Revisited: Selections From the Guild Hall Permanent Collection,” is notable for reminding us about the people behind the pictures and sculptures. For her, the artists’ relationship to this environment and other factors affecting the work that ended up here are essential to understanding its relevance.

This makes sense in the context of the museum’s permanent collection, which exists only because so many of these artists lived and worked here and left some of their legacy behind as they rocketed to international recognition and acclaim.

Guild Hall, which has recently fully archived and digitized its collection, is celebrating just some of what it has with this exhibition. The show’s unfussy title takes us back to a simpler time, before stratospheric auction results in the tens and hundreds of millions, to when these artists might have been famous and well to do on a more modest scale, if at all.

November 2 − December 1
Art Students League: The Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery

Postwar Women is The Art Students League’s first exhibition to explore the vital contributions of these alumnae on the international stage. On view at The Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery from November 2 to December 1, 2019, Postwar Women challenges the misperception that great art produced by women artists is somehow an exception rather than the rule. Curator Will Corwin investigates the history of innovative art academies like The League that promoted democratic ideologies, which in turn created artistic opportunities for women of all social classes. This ground-breaking exhibition features over forty artists active between 1945-65, tracing the complex networks these professional women formed to support one another and their newfound access to art education. Postwar Women presents work by some of the prominent artists of the 20th Century like Louise Bourgeois and Helen Frankenthaler, but more importantly it calls out the women who were not credited enough: Mavis Pusey, Kazuko Miyamoto, Olga Albizu and Helena Vieira da Silva – challenging a new generation of visitors and art students to KNOW YOUR FOREMOTHERS.

Featured Artists:
Berenice Abbott, Mary Abbott, Olga Albizu, Janice Biala, Isabel Bishop, Nell Blaine, Regina Bogat, Louise Bourgeois, Vivian Browne, Elizabeth Catlett, Dorothy Dehner, Elaine de Kooning, Monir Farmanfarmaian, Perle Fine, Helen Frankenthaler, Judith Godwin, Terry Haass, Grace Hartigan, Carmen Herrera, Eva Hesse, Faith Hubley, Lenore Jaffee, Gwendolyn Knight, Lee Krasner, Blanche Lazzell, Marguerite Louppe, Lenita Manry, Marisol, Mercedes Matter, Kazuko Miyamoto, Louise Nevelson, Charlotte Park, Joyce Pensato, Irene Rice Pereira, Mavis Pusey, Faith Ringgold, Edith Schloss, May Stevens,  Yvonne Thomas, Lynn Umlauf, Maria Vieira da Silva, Merrill Wagner, Joyce Weinstein, Michael West

Katonah Museum of Art
Katonah, New York
October 6, 2019 - January 26, 2020

Sparkling Amazons presents the often-overlooked contribution by women artists to the Abstract Expressionist movement and the significant role they played as bold innovators within the New York School during the 1940s and 50s. Through the presentation of some 30 works of art alongside documentary photography, the exhibition captures an important moment in the history of Abstract Expressionism.

The catalyst for this project is the groundbreaking 9th St. show arranged by avant-garde artists with the help of the fledgling gallerist, Leo Castelli in 1951. The show became a pivotal moment for the emergence and acceptance of Abstract Expressionism. The artists of the 9th St. show had struggled to gain critical recognition having been shut out by museums and galleries due to the radical nature of their work. Of the more than 60 artists in the show, including many who were to become prominent figures in Abstract Expressionism, only 11 were women. This is the first time works by these extraordinary women will be brought together since the 9th St. show took place 68 years ago.

In the early 1970s, the preeminent editor and art critic, Thomas Hess, would refer to them as “sparkling Amazons.” These women would neither have viewed themselves as “Amazons” nor as feminists; they simply worked and lived as artists, pursuing their professions with the same dedication as their male counterparts even though the social stakes were much higher for them at the time. Several of the artists, including Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Elaine de Kooning and Helen Frankenthaler went on to have distinguished careers and have found their rightful place in the art historical canon. Others, including Grace Hartigan, Perle Fine and Anne Ryan, enjoyed critical success. The remainder, Sonia Sekula, Day Schnabel, Jean Steubing and Guitou Knoop are yet to be fully recognized by art history, a fact that this exhibition addresses.