Synopsis

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY is actually not a gallery at all, but a very large museum. With the help of its parent organization, the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, and the financial resources of its main benefactor, Seymour H. Knox, Jr., the gallery was a major destination for mid-century avant-garde artists who sought refuge from the hustle and bustle of the New York art world.

Synopsis

Since its inception in 1929, the Museum of Modern Art has continually redefined the idea of the museum in contemporary Western culture. Originally conceived by its founders as a place for Modern art, MoMA, as it is commonly known, established a permanent collection in 1952 and has become the home for some of the greatest works of avant-garde painting, sculpture, film and multi-media art in the world.

Synopsis

While technically the museum had its beginnings as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting in 1939, the official Solomon R. Guggenheim opened in 1959, and contains one of the most impressive and comprehensive collections of Modern art, spanning mid-19th-century Realism to Postmodern sculpture and installation.

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The Whitney Museum of American Art easily stands apart from its New York contemporaries due to its singular mission of acquiring and celebrating the works of great American artists, regardless of style.

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The Art of This Century Gallery, although short-lived, played a key role in launching the careers of many Abstract Expressionists. Opened by Peggy Guggenheim, who was first and foremost a fan of Surrealism and Dadaism, the gallery showcased the works of European artists. Not long after its opening, however, Art of This Century became a champion of many American artists who had been working and struggling for years in New York and elsewhere.

Synopsis

Once referred to as "the den mother of Abstract Expressionism," Betty Parsons was an early advocate of the great Abstract Expressionists, including Pollock, Rothko, Reinhardt, Still and Newman, long before they all achieved notoriety. In its later years, the Parsons Gallery did much to promote the works of many gay, lesbian and bisexual artists, including Agnes Martin, Ellsworth Kelly, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.

Synopsis

The Charles Egan Gallery was a relatively small institution on Manhattan's 57th Street, the center of all art gallery activity in the 1950s. The Egan Gallery was a small but very bright star in the 1940s and 50s, and was best known for its solo exhibitions of some of Abstract Expressionism's biggest figures, including de Kooning, Kline and Guston.

Synopsis

The Julien Levy Gallery was a major destination throughout the 1930s and 40s for popular Surrealist art, photography and experimental film. Many of the 20th century's most revered works of Modern art passed through the Julien Levy Gallery doors at one time or another, making the gallery a fundamental resource for those artists who would define Abstract Expressionism.

Synopsis

The Kootz Gallery was one of the premier art galleries in mid-century New York. Started by art dealer Samuel Kootz in 1944, it not only helped subsidize the works of emerging artists like Motherwell and Baziotes in the late 1940s, but it also offered the first post-World War II retrospective of Picasso in 1947.

Synopsis

In the late 1950s and well into the 1960s, the ever-expanding Leo Castelli Gallery became a major destination for second-generation Abstract Expressionists as well as Neo-Dada, Pop, Minimalist and Conceptualist artists. As new styles emerged, the Castelli Gallery continues to remain on the cutting edge.

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The Sidney Janis Gallery first opened its doors in 1948 and over the ensuing decades became a beacon for some of New York City's most avant-garde artists.

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The Tibor de Nagy Gallery was instrumental in promoting the art of what is commonly referred to as the Second Generation of Abstract Expressionists, which included Helen Frankenthaler, Kenneth Noland and Larry Rivers.

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The 10th Street Galleries were a cooperative set of artist-run art galleries that began opening in the early 1950s in New York City.

Synopsis

In 1929, Barr was appointed as first director of The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. As Director until 1943 (when he was forced to resign), Barr was instrumental in promoting the art of established modernists like van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse and Cézanne. Additionally, there was perhaps no greater champion in America for the work of Pablo Picasso.

Synopsis

The League is an artist-founded institution that arose in the post-Civil War years, when many art students became dissatisfied with the lack of quality instruction in the basics of portraiture, sculpture and composition offered by New York art schools. During the Depression years, many young artists who would eventually define the Abstract Expressionist movement spent their formative years studying and even teaching at the League.

Synopsis

Black Mountain College was an experimental school founded in the middle of the twentieth century on the principles of balancing academics, arts, and manual labor within a democratic, communal society to create "complete" people. The environment was so conducive to interdisciplinary work and experimentation that it proved to be one of the most important settings for twentieth-century artists in their quest to revolutionize modern art.

Synopsis

The Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts was first and foremost a place for young artists to learn and master the practice of working in the studio. To learn from Hofmann was to acquire formal training through meticulous repetition; only then, he taught, could one venture out into the world and create something truly original.

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The School was as a haven for artists and intellectuals of all disciplines to gather and discuss controversial matters without fear of political censure. Specializing mostly in adult and continuing education programs, The New School for Social Research has frequently hosted lectures and forums, many of which were attended by important Abstract Expressionist artists and theorists.

Synopsis

The government-funded Federal Art Project of the WPA hired hundreds of artists who collectively created more than 100,000 paintings and murals and over 18,000 sculptures. The Project was part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal during the Great Depression (1929-1943).