Christine Berry and Martha Campbell launched their New York gallery Berry Campbell by searching through grandchildren’s attics and reaching far under widowers’ beds. This was 11 years ago, when the market for overlooked US Abstract Expressionists had not yet been crowded by blue-chip galleries and fairs such as Independent 20th Century and Frieze Masters. Back then, dedicating a roster to relatively obscure, mostly female artists was still a risky business proposition.
Berry and Campbell met while working at a 60-year-old gallery in Midtown Manhattan. Their mutual fascination for post-war American painting led to them signing a street-level lease in the old-guard Chelsea district, opposite Gagosian. After looking at what Campbell describes as “C- or D-list 20th-century male painters” to build a roster, the duo turned to the Archives of American Art. From there, they researched group shows in the era’s most influential galleries, like Betty Parsons, and circled unfamiliar names. Then they made cold calls to family members and estate-holders listed on poorly kept records. Sometimes they were granted the opportunity to dig through piles of paintings at storage units. “We would inform people who knew nothing about art that their mother was friends with Arshile Gorky and participated in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).”