New York at Independent 20th Century

Independent 20th Century opens this fall, September 24th–27th. The show will take place for the first time at the Breuer, architect Marcel Breuer’s famous edifice at 945 Madison Avenue, originally built as the home of the Whitney Museum and long a key component in the fabric of Museum Mile. It promises to be a game-changing New York moment. And while the show remains international in its scope and outlook, New York artists and galleries have always played a leading role in its explorations of both canonical and lesser-known aspects of 20th-century art history. This year proves no different and several presentations will illuminate moments in New York’s artistic past that have helped keep the city at the forefront of culture. Read on to learn more.

 

The legendary dealer Eleanor Ward opened Stable Gallery on West 58th Street in 1953 and quickly began to champion the New York artists who would become known as the Abstract Expressionists. While AbEx has come down to us mythologized as the art of macho, hard-drinking men, women always formed a crucial part of the movement and Ward showed and supported them from the outset. At Independent 20th Century in September, New York’s Berry Campbell will present The Women of Stable Gallery, a group exhibition of eight artists who showed with Ward during their lifetimes: Ethel Schwabacher, Alice Baber, Janice Biala, Elaine de Kooning, Dorothy Dehner, Perle Fine, Joan Mitchell, and Yvonne Thomas. The work these women produced during the 1950s and ‘60s demonstrates a level of innovation and achievement that stands alongside that of their male peers, yet, while contributing immeasurably to Abstract Expressionism, they often struggled for recognition. By 1960, Ward had moved Stable Gallery to 33 East 74th Street, a location, coincidentally enough, on the very same city block, just around the corner from the Breuer.