The Jefferson Place Gallery was an

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, founded in 1957 and closed in 1974. It had been located at 1216 Connecticut Street, NW in Washington, D.C.. The gallery was associated with the

Washington Color School 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 ...

artists.

History

The Jefferson Place Gallery was initially founded in 1957 as a cooperative gallery, by five current and former art professors at

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...

, William Howard Calfee,

Robert Franklin Gates Robert Franklin Gates (1906–1982) was an American muralist, painter, printmaker, and art professor. He was a professor at American University, between 1946 until 1975. In the 1930s, Gates was one of hundreds of artists who benefitted from the ...

Helene Herzbrun 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 Expressionism, abstract expressionist who develo ...

, Mary Ryan Orwen, and Ben Summerford. 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 Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was though ...

, 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 The Washington Gallery of Modern Art was a short-lived gallery promoting contemporary art near Dupont Circle in Washington, DC, United States, during the 1960s. The gallery remained open for seven years, opening in October 1961 and closing in Septe ...

. Dorrance ran it until it closed in October 1974.

Legacy

The gallery exhibited "advanced art" and was associated with Washington Color School, a color field,

post-painterly abstraction Post-painterly abstraction is a term created by art critic Clement Greenberg as the title for an exhibit he curated for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1964, which subsequently travelled to the Walker Art Center and the Art Gallery of Toront ...

and

lyrical abstraction Lyrical abstraction is either of two related but distinct trends in Post-war Modernist painting: ''European Abstraction Lyrique'' born in Paris, the French art critic Jean José Marchand being credited with coining its name in 1947, considered ...

for a number of years, and was a major Washington outlet for that art. The competitors in

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

with Nesta Dorrance's Jefferson Place Gallery were Henri Gallery enrietta Ersham Pyramid Gallery amon Osuna and Luis Lastraand later, Protetch-Rivkin Gallery ax Protetch and Harold Rivkin

Artists

Some artists who also exhibited at Jefferson Place Gallery: ,

William Christenberry William Andrew Christenberry Jr. (November 5, 1936 – November 28, 2016) was an American photographer, painter, sculptor, and teacher who drew inspiration from his childhood in Hale County, Alabama. Christenberry focused extensively on architec ...

, Gene Davis,

Willem De Looper Willem Johan de Looper (October 30, 1932 – January 30, 2009) was an American abstract artist, and chief curator at The Phillips Collection. Life Willem de Looper, born October 30, 1932, was the third child of Wilhelmina Johanna and Henri B ...

William Eggleston William Eggleston (born July 27, 1939) is an American photographer. He is widely credited with increasing recognition for color photography as a legitimate artistic medium. Eggleston's books include ''William Eggleston's Guide'' (1976) and ''The ...

Sam Gilliam Sam Gilliam ( ; November 30, 1933 – June 25, 2022) was an American color field painter and lyrical abstractionist artist. Gilliam was associated with the Washington Color School, a group of Washington, D.C.-area artists that developed a form ...

John Gossage John Gossage (born 1946) is an American photographer, noted for his artist's books and other publications using his photographs to explore under-recognised elements of the urban environment such as abandoned tracts of land, debris and garbage, and ...

Valerie Hollister Valerie Dutton Hollister (née Valerie Dutton; born 1939) is an American artist, known for her paintings, printmaking, and artist books. She frequently has used computer technology in aspects of her work. Biography Valerie Dutton Hollister was ...

, Sheila Isham, Jennie Lea Knight,

Rockne Krebs Rockne Krebs (December 24, 1938 – October 10, 2011) was a contemporary American artist and sculptor. Biography Early life Krebs was born on December 24, 1938, in Kansas City, Missouri. He graduated from the University of Kansas in 1961 and ...

, Blaine Larson,

Howard Mehring Howard Mehring (1931–1978) was a twentieth-century painter born in Washington, D.C. Howard Mehring is associated with Color Field painting and the Washington Color School and the artists at Jefferson Place Gallery. Mehring and Robert Gates ...

Mary Pinchot Meyer Mary Eno Pinchot Meyer (; October 14, 1920 – October 12, 1964) was an American painter who lived in Washington D.C. She was married to Central Intelligence Agency official Cord Meyer from 1945–1958, and became involved romantically with P ...

, David Moy, Roberto Polo, V. V. Rankine,

Paul Reed (artist) Paul (Allen) Reed (March 28, 1919 – September 26, 2015) was an American artist most associated with the Washington Color School and Color Field Painting. Biography At the time of his death in 2015 Reed was the last living member of the Washi ...

, Eric Rudd,

Yuri Schwebler Yuri "George" Schwebler (1942–1990), was a Yugoslavia-born American conceptual artist and sculptor. He was active in the arts in the 1970s in Washington, D.C. and most notably in February 1974, he transformed the Washington Monument into a sund ...

, Roy Slade, D. Jack Solomon, David Staton, Elliot Thompson, Hilda Shapiro Thorpe, Frederic Matys Thursz, Franklin White, John P. Wise, Mary Orwen, Carroll Sockwell, and Ed Zerne.

References

External links

Thomas Downing Bio

Barbara Freeman Bio

Ben L. Summerford Bio

Thomas George Bio {{Authority control Art museums and galleries in Washington, D.C. Defunct art museums and galleries in the United States Art galleries established in 1957 Art galleries disestablished in 1974 1957 establishments in Washington, D.C. 1974 disestablishments in Washington, D.C.

History

Legacy

Artists

References

Further reading

External links