The C. Grimaldis Gallery is a contemporary and modern art gallery established in 1977 by Constantine Grimaldis. It is the longest continually operating gallery in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

. The gallery specializes in post-WWII American and

European art The art of Europe, or Western art, encompasses the history of visual art in Europe. European prehistoric art started as mobile Upper Paleolithic rock and cave painting and petroglyph art and was characteristic of the period between the Paleo ...

with an emphasis on contemporary sculpture. In addition to representing approximately 40 nationally and internationally established artists, the gallery is responsible for the estates of

Grace Hartigan Grace Hartigan (March 28, 1922 – November 15, 2008) was an American Abstract Expressionist painter and a significant member of the vibrant New York School of the 1950s and 1960s. Her circle of friends, who frequently inspired one another in t ...

and

Eugene Leake Eugene "Bud" Leake pronounced "Leaky" (31 August 1911 – 21 January 2005) was a landscape painter and president of the Maryland Institute College of Art. His work was characterized by a consistent commitment to the depiction of the lands ...

. The gallery has been responsible for hundreds of important solo and group exhibitions that have launched and sustained the careers of many artists from the United States and abroad. "Grimaldis began in 1977 by exhibiting mostly artists with a regional reputation, but gradually added major New York names to the roster and made his gallery one always worth following." Noteworthy artists to have exhibited at C. Grimaldis Gallery include

John Baldessari John Anthony Baldessari (June 17, 1931 – January 2, 2020) was an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lived and worked in Santa Monica and Venice, California. Initially a painter, ...

Sir Anthony Caro Sir Anthony Alfred Caro (8 March 192423 October 2013) was an English abstract sculptor whose work is characterised by assemblages of metal using ' found' industrial objects. His style was of the modernist school, having worked with Henry Moo ...

,Stevens, Elisabeth. "Area Galleries Show Many Fine Works." The Sun altimore11 July 1985, Art Review sec. Print.

Elaine de Kooning Elaine Marie Catherine de Kooning (, née Fried; March 12, 1918 – February 1, 1989) was an Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era. She wrote extensively on the art of the period and was an edit ...

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter ...

,Giuliano, Mike. "Grimaldis: New Location, Art." The Baltimore Sun altimore10 Sept. 1986, Today sec.: 1B–5B. Print.

Hans Hoffman Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...

Beverly McIver Beverly McIver (born c. 1962) is a contemporary artist, mostly known for her self-portraits, who was born and raised in Greensboro, NC. She is currently the Esbenshade Professor of the Practice of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke Univ ...

,McNatt, Glenn. "Beverly McIver Uses Blackface in Her Art to Transform the 'Mammy' Myth." The Sun altimore9 Mar. 2003. Print.

Alice Neel Alice Neel (January 28, 1900 – October 13, 1984) was an American visual artist, who was known for her portraits depicting friends, family, lovers, poets, artists, and strangers. Her paintings have an expressionistic use of line and color, psy ...

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

Richard Serra Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, urban, and architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material quality and exploration of ...

Joel Shapiro Joel Shapiro (born September 27, 1941 New York City, New York) is an American sculptor renowned for his dynamic work composed of simple rectangular shapes. The artist is classified as a Minimalist as demonstrated in his works, which were mostly d ...

,C. Grimaldis Gallery. "Drawings By Sculptors." Exhibition announcement. Baltimore: C. Grimaldis Gallery, 1996. Print.

John Van Alstine John Van Alstine (born 1952) is an American contemporary art sculptor and former assistant professor of fine arts at the University of Wyoming in Laramie and the University of Maryland in College Park where he taught drawing and sculpture. ...

and

John Waters John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films, including '' Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), '' Pink Flamingos'' (1972) and '' Fe ...

. The gallery produces scholarly catalogues and public programing in support of select exhibitions. Public programming consists of artists talks and expert lectures on current exhibitions which are free and open to the public in the gallery space. In addition to gallery exhibitions and events, C. Grimaldis Gallery participates in an average of six national and international

art fairs An art exhibition is traditionally the space in which art objects (in the most general sense) meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhib ...

annually.Grimaldis, Constantine. "Conversation With Constantine Grimaldis." Interview by MacKenzie Peck. 11 Jan. 2012. For over 14 years C. Grimaldis Gallery has participated in various art fairs including Art Miami, Palm Beach 3,

Art Chicago EXPO Chicago is an international contemporary and modern art exhibition held each year in Chicago, Illinois. In 2012, it took over the duties of a prior organization, Art Chicago, which began in 1980. ''Art Chicago'' was Chicago's longest-runni ...

Art Athina Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of ...

and the

Houston Fine Art Fair Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

History

On September 29, 1977 the inaugural C. Grimaldis Gallery opening reception was held for an exhibition of prints by

Mavis Pusey Mavis Iona Pusey (September 17, 1928 – April 20, 2019) was a Jamaican-born American abstract artist. She was a printmaker and painter who was well known for her hard-edge, nonrepresentational images. Pusey drew inspirations from urban constr ...

and sculptures b
Stephanie Scuris
At this time the gallery was located at 928 North Charles Street. The Baltimore Chronicle described the space as a "...well-proportioned, ornate, high-ceilinged gallery, painted white 'to let the art speak.'" Starting in the late 1970s and into the late 1980s C. Grimaldis Gallery was among several art galleries on Charles Street in Baltimore City including G.H. Dalsheimer Gallery, Meredith Gallery, B.R. Kornblatt Gallery, Purnell Galleries and George Ciscle Gallery. Sharon Dickman wrote in The Evening Sun Accent, "From Saratoga to Chase streets, the Charles street galleries can be penciled in, block after block, like Cézanne bathers standing at the water's edge." Today, C. Grimaldis Gallery is the only gallery, from this group, that remains. Having thrived during the 1970s, 1980s and remaining as an influential voice in the local and national community solidifies the C. Grimaldis Gallery's place in Baltimore art history. In 1979 the gallery exhibited paintings by the

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of th ...

painter

. "Paintings Of The Seventies" was her first solo exhibition in Baltimore. She continued on to have a solo exhibition at The Baltimore Museum of Art the following year. In a feature article in The Baltimore Sun Sunday Magazine Cherrill Anson wrote, "The most celebrated woman painter in the United States today, Miss Hartigan has made her studio in a four-story former rag factory a block from the waterfront for two years—ever since she married the Johns Hopkins scientist Dr. Winston H. Price and moved to Baltimore from New York." In a 1979 ''Baltimore Sun'' article the artist said, "I like Costas onstantine Grimaldis He's committed to this city, and he is efficient and on time. I think there are young people of talent here too. I dislike the reverse provincialism of not liking artists in your own city. New York in the late 1940s was like Baltimore is now." The C. Grimaldis Gallery remains Grace Hartigan's primary representation since the beginning of their relationship in 1979 and has continued as the executor of her estate since 2008. From 1965 until 2008 Hartigan was the Chair of th
Hoffberger School of Painting
at the

Maryland Institute College of Art The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a Private university, private art school, art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of t ...

. "Alice Neel '81: A Retrospective, 1926–1981," in 1981 was an important exhibition in the history of the C. Grimaldis Gallery and the first time Neel's paintings were exhibited in Baltimore, Maryland. It was soon followed by the 1983 solo exhibition of works by Alice Neel titled "Alice Neel: Five Decades of Painting". In December 1985 the sculptures of

first appeared in Baltimore at C. Grimaldis Gallery. A total of 11 sculptures by Caro, including his well-known "Table Pieces", were on display. The Baltimore Sun reported that "These smaller works resting on, and expanding horizontally and vertically from plain white stands rising to table height, have been compared to still-life paintings by old masters such as Chardin. One such work at Grimaldis is the outstanding "Rose Bloom," 1983, in lead and wood—a lyrical arrangement that suggest the patterns of overlapping petals without literally depicting a floral shape." In the autumn of 1986 C. Grimaldis Gallery moved from 928 North Charles Street to its current location of 523 North Charles Street. The inaugural exhibition at this new location was "Grimaldis & Friends" in September 1986. This group show featured works by

and

. Regarding the work of Hans Hoffman, Bennard Perlman of The Baltimore Daily Record noted that "It is doubly appropriate that this painting by this giant among painters should be exhibited here, in Baltimore, for it not only serves to pay tribute to the gallery's new location but simultaneously to the late

Adelyn Breeskin Adelyn Dohme Breeskin (1896–1986) was an American curator, museum director, and art historian known for her longtime leadership of the Baltimore Museum of Art and Mary Cassatt scholarship. Biography Adelyn Dohme was born in 1896 in Baltimore ...

. It was Mrs. B., during her tenure as director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, who chose the work, among others, for inclusion in the 1960 Venice Biennale. Homage can be paid in both respects by having this canvas remain in the city."Perlman, Bennard. "A New Season, a New Location for Grimaldis." The Daily Record altimore3 Sept. 1986, Art & Leisure sec. Print. This exhibition included two works by Willem de Kooning and marked the first time he was exhibited in Baltimore, Maryland. In the spring of 1990 Mr. Grimaldis opened an additional gallery called Sculpture Space located at 1006 Morton Street. The gallery measured 3,000 square feet and was capable of accommodating larger and heavier pieces than the 523 N Charles Street gallery. The first exhibition in Sculpture Space was a solo exhibition of sculptures by Jene Highstein. In 1993 Sculpture Space closed. Another noteworthy exhibition at C. Grimaldis Gallery featured works on paper by the sculptors; Jene Highstein, Pello Irazu,

Mel Kendrick Mel Kendrick (born July 28, 1949), is an American artist, known primarily for his sculptural work in wood, bronze, rubber, paper and, most recently, cast concrete. Kendrick's work reflects a deep fascination with process, space, and geometry. The ...

, Ulrich Ruckriem,

, Joel Shapiro, and

titled "Drawings By Sculptors" opened in January 1996 at the 523 N Charles Street location. This was the first exhibition of works by Richard Serra in Baltimore, Maryland. Constantine Grimaldis first exhibited paintings by

in March 2003 in the solo exhibition "Mammy, I Love You," which received extensive critical acclaim. This is illustrated in Joe Shannon's response to the exhibition in

Art in America ''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It ...

, "McIver, a North Carolina native who is currently a Radcliffe fellow, has created a narrative project that is one of the most emotionally successful you will see, as pure painting and as a mirror on life." Soon thereafter, in 2004, The

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...

acquired a painting by McIver titled "A Woman's Work." An award-winning documentary on Beverly McIver's life and work titled "Raising Renee" was created by West City Films and HBO in 2011. In December 2011 Beverly McIver was listed in Art in America's "2011's Top Ten in Painting" by Raphael Rubinstein. The C. Grimaldis Gallery is the primary representation of

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republi ...

light art Light art or The Art of Light is generally referring to a visual art form in which (physical) light is the main, if not sole medium of creation. Uses of the term differ drastically in incongruence; definitions, if existing, vary in several asp ...

ist Chul Hyun Ahn who is in the Borusan Contemporary, Marguiles Collection, Marvin and Elayne Mordes Collection, Washington D.C. Convention Center Collection,

Delaware Art Museum The Delaware Art Museum is an art museum located on the Kentmere Parkway in Wilmington, Delaware, which holds a collection of more than 12,000 objects. The museum was founded in 1912 as the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts in honor of the artis ...

Hearst Foundation Hearst Communications, Inc., often referred to simply as Hearst, is an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate based in Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Hearst owns newspapers, magazines, televi ...

, Harn Museum, and Palm Springs Art Museum, among others. Chul Hyun Ahn first exhibited with the gallery in the winter of 2003 after Mr. Grimaldis saw Ahn's thesis work at the

where he earned an MFA in 2002. The 2003 exhibition was titled "Infinity – Emptiness" and featured six light sculptures. As Hilarie Sheets, contributing editor to ''

ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American visual-arts magazine, based in New York City. It covers art from ancient to contemporary times. ARTnews is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. It has a readership of 180,000 in 124 countr ...

'' who also writes regularly for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

'', and

Art + Auction Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

, described in a C. Grimaldis Gallery "Infinite Void" exhibition catalog:

Ahn is part of a younger generation of artists, including
Olafur Eliasson Olafur Eliasson ( is, Ólafur Elíasson; born 5 February 1967) is an Icelandic–Danish artist known for sculptured and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer's ...
, Ivan Navarro,
Spencer Finch Spencer Finch (born 1962 in New Haven, Connecticut) is an American artist. After attending The Hotchkiss School, he graduated ''magna cum laude'' with a B.A. in comparative literature from Hamilton College in 1985. Finch then pursued an M.F.A. in ...
, and
Leo Villareal Leo Villareal (born 1967) is an American artist. His work combines LED lights and encoded computer programming to create illuminated displays. He is living and working in New York City. Early life and education Villareal was born in 1967 in ...
, who use actual light as their primary medium because of its immediate experiential qualities and metaphoric richness. When Ahn has exhibited "Untitled (Double) I" (2009), a beaming square inside a larger square, viewers have actually made nose prints on the exterior one-way mirror as they have tried to see into the dark tunnel sloping downwards that opens up inside the center square. At once thrilling and ominous, it suggests a rabbit hole to another world—underwater, outer space, afterlife—or journey to the unknown, the kind of leap of faith involved in the artist's own passage to an unfamiliar country and language.

Artists

Artists currently represented by the C. Grimaldis Gallery

References

External links

*
C. Grimaldis Gallery on Artnet
* * {{Coord, 39, 17, 45.4, N, 76, 36, 55.6, W, region:US-MD_type:landmark, display=title

Art museums and galleries in Maryland Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic ...

1977 establishments in Maryland Art galleries established in 1977