The Green Gallery was an art gallery that operated between 1960 and 1965 at 15 West 57th Street in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, New York City. The gallery's director was Richard Bellamy, and its financial backer was the art collector

Robert Scull Robert Scull (1915–January 1, 1986, age 70) was an American art collector, best known for his "world-famous collection of Pop and Minimal art". Born in New York to Russian immigrant parents, Scull dropped out of high school and had various jobs ...

. Green Gallery is noted for giving early visibility to a number of artists who soon rose to prominence, such as

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes ...

Mark di Suvero Marco Polo di Suvero (born September 18, 1933, in Shanghai, China), better known as Mark di Suvero, is an abstract expressionist sculptor and 2010 National Medal of Arts recipient. Biography Early life and education Marco Polo di Suvero was bor ...

Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism (a term he nonetheless stridently disavowed).Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In ...

, and

George Segal George Segal Jr. (February 13, 1934 – March 23, 2021) was an American actor. He became popular in the 1960s and 1970s for playing both dramatic and comedic roles. After first rising to prominence with roles in acclaimed films such as ''Ship o ...

History

Prior to starting the Green Gallery, Bellamy was co-director of the Hansa Gallery, an artists' cooperative gallery in New York's 10th Street gallery district that had moved uptown. He brought his deep connections with downtown artists with him to his new enterprise, which joined a small number of uptown galleries focused on new American art. These included

Leo Castelli Leo Castelli (born Leo Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-American art dealer who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased contemporary art for five decades. Among the movements which ...

(founded only a few years before Green) and the somewhat older

Sidney Janis Sidney Janis (July 8, 1896 – November 23, 1989) was a wealthy clothing manufacturer and art collector who opened an art gallery in New York City, New York in 1948. His gallery quickly gained prominence, for he not only exhibited work by the Abs ...

and

Stable A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals and livestock. There are many different types of stables in use today; the ...

Galleries. The genesis of the Green Gallery was Robert Scull's interest around 1959 in discovering and securing works by new artists directly, without having to deal with a gallery. While he had been making time to visit studios, he had a business to run and believed a gallery of his own would enable him to reap the benefits of this kind of research without the investment of time. He initially approached

Ivan Karp Ivan C. Karp (June 4, 1926 – June 28, 2012) was an American art dealer, gallerist and author instrumental in the emergence of pop art and the development of Manhattan's SoHo gallery district in the 1960s. Ivan Karp was born in the Bronx and gr ...

to run the gallery, and Karp referred him to Bellamy. Scull was a silent backer of the business, in order not to interfere with his relationships with other galleries. While the Green Gallery was not a commercial success, it was distinguished by Bellamy's wide-ranging taste and his presentation of artists working in directions that soon became recognized as vital trends. The gallery's short history spanned a vibrant period in the New York art world; it showcased a diverse group of artists who were giving shape to styles that would soon be labeled Color Field painting, Pop Art and

Minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

Notable artists

Artists receiving important first shows at the Green Gallery during its five-year run included:

, Lucas Samaras,

James Rosenquist James Rosenquist (November 29, 1933 – March 31, 2017) was an American artist and one of the proponents of the pop art movement. Drawing from his background working in sign painting, Rosenquist's pieces often explored the role of advertising a ...

Claes Oldenburg Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...

(first uptown show),

(first show as a sculptor), Robert Morris,

(first show as a sculptor),

Larry Poons Lawrence M. "Larry" Poons (born October 1, 1937) is an American abstract painter. Poons was born in Tokyo, Japan, and studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music, with the intent of becoming a professional musician. After ...

and

Dan Flavin Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933 – November 29, 1996) was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures. Early life and career Daniel Nicholas Flavin ...

. Although Bellamy did not represent

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

, Green was the first American gallery to exhibit one of his Pop paintings, ''200 One Dollar Bills'' (1962), included in a 1962 group show. The gallery also presented the work of artists such as

Tom Wesselmann Thomas K. Wesselmann (February 23, 1931 – December 17, 2004) was an American artist associated with the Pop Art movement who worked in painting, collage and sculpture. Early years Wesselmann was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati. From 1949 ...

Alfred Leslie Alfred Leslie (born October 29, 1927) is an American artist and filmmaker. He first achieved success as an Abstract Expressionist painter, but changed course in the early 1960s and became a painter of realistic figurative paintings. Biography ...

Milet Andrejevic Milet Andrejević (28 September 1925 – 21 October 1989) was a Yugoslav-born American painter in the realist tradition. A classically trained artist who went through a series of different artistic periods, including post-Impressionism, Express ...

Robert Beauchamp Robert Beauchamp (1923 – 22 March 1995) was an American figurative painter and arts educator. Beauchamp's paintings and drawings are known for depicting dramatic creatures and figures with expressionistic colors. His work was described in the ...

, Neil Williams, Philip Wofford,

Ralph Humphrey Ralph Humphrey (April 14, 1932 – July 14, 1990) was an American abstract painter whose work has been linked to both Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. He was active in the New York art scene in the 1960s and '70s. His paintings are bes ...

Ronald Bladen Ronald Bladen (July 13, 1918 – February 3, 1988) was a Canadian-born American painter and sculptor. He is particularly known for his large-scale sculptures. His artistic stance, was influenced by European Constructivism, American Hard-Edge ...

, Richard Smith, Sally Hazelet Drummond,

Pat Passlof Pat Passlof (August 5, 1928 – November 13, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. Biography Passlof was born in Georgia in 1928 and grew up in New York City, attending Queens College. In the summer of 1948, she studied painting ...

, and Tadaaki Kuwayama. Other artists who exhibited in group exhibitions there included

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 ...

Ellsworth Kelly Ellsworth Kelly (May 31, 1923 – December 27, 2015) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and minimalism. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing line, c ...

Frank Stella Frank Philip Stella (born May 12, 1936) is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. Stella lives and works in New York City. Biography Frank Stella was born in M ...

, John Chamberlain,

Daniel Spoerri Daniel Spoerri (born 27 March 1930) is a Swiss artist and writer born in Romania. Spoerri is best known for his "snare-pictures," a type of assemblage or object art, in which he captures a group of objects, such as the remains of meals eaten by in ...

George Brecht George Brecht (August 27, 1926 – December 5, 2008), born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson ...

, Miles Forst,

Walter Darby Bannard Walter Darby Bannard (September 23, 1934 – October 2, 2016) was an American abstract painter and professor of art and art history at the University of Miami Early life and education Bannard was born in New Haven, Connecticut and attended P ...

, Robert Whitman,

Julius Hatofsky Julius Hatofsky (April 1, 1922 – January 1, 2006) was an American painter. Biography Julius Hatofsky was born in Ellenville, in upstate New York, in 1922, and first studied art as a teenager in the Works Progress Administration/Federal Art Pr ...

, Burgoyne Diller, Myron Stout,

Richard Stankiewicz Richard Stankiewicz (1922–1983) was an American sculptor, known for his work in scrap metal. Stankiewicz was born in Philadelphia, but spent his formative years in Detroit. He began painting and sculpting while in the United States Navy, in ...

, Lester Johnson,

James Lee Byars James Lee Byars (April 10, 1932, Detroit, Michigan – May 23, 1997, Cairo, Egypt) was an American conceptual artist and performance artist specializing in installations and sculptures, as well as a self-considered mystic. He was best known for h ...

, Sidney Tillim,

Charles Ginnever Charles Albert Ginnever (August 28, 1931 – June 16, 2019), was an American sculptor known primarily for large-scale abstract steel sculptures that defy simple understanding, as the works seem to constantly change form as one moves around them in ...

, Anthony Magar, Felix Pasilis, Alice Mason, H.C. Westermann,

Lee Lozano Lee Lozano (November 5, 1930 – October 2, 1999) was an American painter, and visual and conceptual artist. Biography Early years Born Lenore Knaster in Newark, New Jersey, she started to use the name "Lee" at the age of fourteen, often prefer ...

, Joan Jacobs, Lilly Brody, Jean Follett, Aristedemos Kaldis, Leslie Kerr, Kaymar,

Peter Agostini Peter Agostini (February 13, 1913 Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan – March 27, 1993) was an American sculptor. Life Agostini studied at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School in 1935 and 1936. He taught sculpture and painting at the New York Studio School, ...

Phillip Pavia Philip Pavia (1911-2005) was a culturally influential American artist of Italian descent, known for his scatter sculpture and figurative abstractions, and the debate he fostered among many of the 20th century's most important art thinkers. A foun ...

Franz Kline Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...

, among others. La Prade Eric. ''Breaking Through Richard Bellamy and the Green Gallery 1960–1965 Twenty-Three Interviews'', pp. 202–205, Midmarch Arts Press, 2009

References

External links

Richard Bellamy's NY Times obituary, Retrieved February 1st 2009Artnet, Charlie Finch ''The Way It Was,'' retrieved February 1st, 2009Elizabeth Baker, "Richard Bellamy 1927–1998," ''Art in America'', retrieved February 1st, 2009Richard Bellamy archives, Museum of Modern Art

History

Notable artists

See also

References

External links

Further reading