Formation | 1957 |
---|---|
Dissolved | October 1, 1974 |
Type | arts organization, art gallery |
Headquarters | 1216 Connecticut Street, NW, Washington, D.C., United States |
Key people | William Howard Calfee, Robert Franklin Gates, Helene Herzbrun, Mary Orwen, Ben Summerford, Alice Denney, Nesta Dorrance |
The Jefferson Place Gallery was an art gallery in Washington, D.C., founded in 1957 and closed in 1974. [1] [2] It had been located at 1216 Connecticut Street, NW in Washington, D.C.. The gallery was associated with the Washington Color School artists.
The Jefferson Place Gallery was initially founded in 1957 as a cooperative gallery, [3] by five current and former art professors at American University, William Howard Calfee, Robert Franklin Gates, Helene Herzbrun, Mary Ryan Orwen, and Ben Summerford. [4] Alice Denney, served as the first gallery director. Other artists who joined the cooperative in 1957 were George Bayliss, Lothar Brabanski, Colin Greenly, Leonard Maurer, Kenneth Noland, and Baltimore-based artist Shelby Shackelford.
Nesta Dorrance acquired the gallery from Alice Denney in 1961, when she left to organize the Washington Gallery of Modern Art. [5] Dorrance ran it until it closed in October 1974.
The gallery exhibited "advanced art" and was associated with Washington Color School, a color field, post-painterly abstraction and lyrical abstraction for a number of years, and was a major Washington outlet for that art.
The competitors in contemporary art with Nesta Dorrance's Jefferson Place Gallery were Henri Gallery [Henrietta Ersham], Pyramid Gallery [Ramon Osuna and Luis Lastra] and later, Protetch-Rivkin Gallery [Max Protetch and Harold Rivkin].
Some artists who also exhibited at Jefferson Place Gallery: Antoinette Pinchot Bradlee, William Christenberry, Gene Davis, Willem De Looper, William Eggleston, Sam Gilliam, [6] John Gossage, Valerie Hollister, [5] Sheila Isham, [5] Jennie Lea Knight, Rockne Krebs, Blaine Larson, Howard Mehring, [5] Mary Pinchot Meyer, David Moy, Roberto Polo, V. V. Rankine, Paul Reed (artist), [5] Eric Rudd, Yuri Schwebler, [5] Roy Slade, [5] D. Jack Solomon, David Staton, [5] Elliot Thompson, Hilda Shapiro Thorpe, [5] Frederic Matys Thursz, Franklin White, [5] John P. Wise, Mary Orwen, [4] Carroll Sockwell, [7] and Ed Zerne. [5]
Anne Truitt, born Anne Dean, was an American sculptor of the mid-20th century.
The Corcoran School of the Arts and Design is the professional art school of the George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1878, the school is housed in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the oldest private cultural institution in Washington, located on The Ellipse, facing the White House. The Corcoran School is part of GW's Columbian College of Arts and Sciences and was formerly an independent college, until 2014.
Sam Gilliam was an American abstract painter, sculptor, and arts educator. Born in Mississippi, and raised in Kentucky, Gilliam spent his entire adult life in Washington, D.C., eventually being described as the "dean" of the city's arts community. Originally associated with the Washington Color School, a group of Washington-area artists that developed a form of abstract art from color field painting in the 1950s and 1960s, Gilliam moved beyond the group's core aesthetics of flat fields of color in the mid-60s by introducing both process and sculptural elements to his paintings.
The Washington Color School, also known as the Washington, D.C., Color School, was an art movement starting during the 1950s–1970s in Washington, D.C., in the United States, built of abstract expressionist artists. The movement emerged during a time when society, the arts, and people were changing quickly. The founders of this movement are Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, however four more artists were part of the initial art exhibition in 1965.
Alma Woodsey Thomas was an African-American artist and teacher who lived and worked in Washington, D.C., and is now recognized as a major American painter of the 20th century. Thomas is best known for the "exuberant", colorful, abstract paintings that she created after her retirement from a 35-year career teaching art at Washington's Shaw Junior High School.
Howard Mehring (1931–1978) was a twentieth-century painter born in Washington, D.C.
Paul (Allen) Reed was an American artist most associated with the Washington Color School and Color Field Painting.
Keith Anthony Morrison, Commander of Distinction (C.D.), born May 20, 1942), is a Jamaican-born painter, printmaker, educator, critic, curator and administrator.
Sylvia Snowden is an African American abstract painter who works with acrylics, oil pastels, and mixed media to create textured works that convey the "feel of paint". Many museums have hosted her art in exhibits, while several have added her works to their permanent collections.
Lowell Blair Nesbitt was an American painter, draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor. He served as the official artist for the NASA Apollo 9, and Apollo 13 space missions; in 1976 the United States Navy commissioned him to paint a mural in the administration building on Treasure Island spanning 26 feet x 251 feet, then the largest mural in the United States; and in 1980 the United States Postal Service honored Lowell Nesbitt by issuing four postage stamps depicting his paintings.
Washington Project for the Arts, founded in 1975, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the support and aid of artists in the Washington, D.C. area.
Willem Johan de Looper was an American abstract artist, and chief curator at The Phillips Collection.
Benjamin Abramowitz was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. First recognized for his contribution at age 19 as senior artist with the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in New York City, he is among the most respected Washington, D.C., artists of the past century.
Anthony Hernandez is an American photographer who divides his time between Los Angeles, his birthplace, and Idaho. His photography has ranged from street photography to images of the built environment and other remains of civilization, particularly those discarded or abandoned elements that serve as evidence of human presence. He has spent most of his career photographing in Los Angeles and environs. "It is L.A.'s combination of beauty and brutality that has always intrigued Hernandez." La Biennale di Venezia said of Hernandez, "For the past three decades a prevalent question has troubled the photographer: how to picture the contemporary ruins of the city and the harsh impact of urban life on its less advantaged citizens?" His wife is the novelist Judith Freeman.
James Frances Hilleary was a working architect and painter who gained prominence as a member of the Washington Color School movement.
Helene Herzbrun (1921–1984) was an American artist who lived and worked within the art community in Washington, D.C. A student and friend of Jack Tworkov, she was a second-generation abstract expressionist who developed a personal style that set her apart from the Color School movement of her time. She was known for abstract landscapes having bold colors and employing gestural brushwork. She was also said to possess an ability to create the illusion of depth without employing graphical perspective. As well as painting, Herzbrun enjoyed a long career gallery administrator and professor of art at American University.
William Woodward is an American painter and muralist from Washington, D.C. He is known for his mural commissions throughout the United States and a number of his pieces are in the permanent collections of major museums.
Mary Orwen (1913–2005) was an American artist known for paintings that appeared to be completely abstract but were usually inspired by objects in the natural world. Her goal, as she put it, was to "find an echo in the visible world of the order which I feel exists beneath the complexity of life." She spent much of her career painting and teaching art in and around Washington, D.C., and was a principal co-founder of an artists' cooperative called Jefferson Place Gallery, that one critic called "a gallery for serious creative work of progressive character" and that Orwen said would demonstrate that the city was not just a provincial backwater.
Valerie Dutton Hollister is an American artist, known for her paintings, printmaking, and artist books. She frequently has used computer technology in aspects of her work.
Blaine Gledhill Larson was an American painter and educator.
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