Eleanor Ward (1911?–1984) was the founder of

Stable Gallery The Stable Gallery, originally located on West 58th Street in New York City, was founded in 1953 by Eleanor Ward. The Stable Gallery hosted early solo New York exhibitions for artists including Marisol Escobar, Robert Indiana and Andy Warhol. His ...

and an art dealer.

Career

Eleanor Ward fostered the impression that she was from a socially prominent family, rather than, in reality, from a middle-class family in a Pennsylvania hill town. She began her career working in advertising in New York City and, subsequently, worked for

Christian Dior Christian Ernest Dior (; 21 January 1905 – 24 October 1957) was a French fashion designer and founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, Dior, Christian Dior SE. His fashion house is known all around the world, having gained promi ...

's fashion house in Paris. She subsequently returned to New York City and leased space at Seventh Avenue and West 58th Street in 1952 to sell mannequins and provide space for fashion photography. Utilizing the same space, Ward founded and opened the Stable Gallery in 1953. The name of the gallery was derived from the livery stable in which it had been originally located. In 1953, her first exhibition featured the work of friend Mike Mishke, a commercial artist. Also in the gallery's inaugural year, she began hosting the New York School's annual exhibitions, formerly the

9th Street Art Exhibition The 9th Street Art Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture is the official title artist Franz Kline hand-lettered onto the poster he designed for the Ninth Street Show (May 21-June 10, 1951).

due to its 1951 initial event having been at 60 East 9th Street. Commencing in 1953, five influential annuals followed (under various exhibition names such as "Second Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture") to become known as the Stable Annuals, concluding in 1957. The events were curated by artists and included participation by

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...

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

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 Mo ...

, and

Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionism, abstract expressionist Painting, painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of th ...

. Ward was known for showing the work of controversial and emerging artists. She curated the first solo shows of

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

Cy Twombly Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. (; April 25, 1928July 5, 2011) was an American Painting, painter, Sculpture, sculptor, and photographer. Twombly influenced artists such as Anselm Kiefer, Francesco Clemente, Julian Schnabel, and Jean-Michel Bas ...

, and

Robert Indiana Robert Indiana (born Robert Clark; September 13, 1928 – May 19, 2018) was an American artist associated with the pop art movement. Indiana is mostly known for his iconic image LOVE which was first created in 1964 in the form of a card. India ...

Emile de Antonio Emile Francisco de Antonio (May 14, 1919 – December 15, 1989) was an American director and producer of documentary films, usually detailing political, social, and counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture events circa 1960s–1980s. He has be ...

had introduced Ward to Warhol. She also showed the work of

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" or "Bob" 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 Combine painting, Combines (1954� ...

, who was working as a janitor at the gallery at the time of the exhibition in 1953.name="artnet". She became noted for her innovative installations such as for

Joseph Cornell Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American visual artist and filmmaker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde experimental filmma ...

for which she had the gallery painted black.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the third-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5.36 million v ...

's Cornell exhibition followed suit. Other landmarks included the Stable's becoming the first major gallery to recognize photography.

Hans Namuth Hans Namuth (March 17, 1915 – October 13, 1990) was a German-born American photographer. He specialized in portraiture, photographing many artists, including abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock. His photos of Pollock at work in his studio i ...

was given a one-person show in 1958. There was also a pre-Columbian sculpture venue, and the musical notations of

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

were shown. The gallery was eventually located on the first floor of 33

East 74th Street 74th Street is an east–west street carrying pedestrian traffic and eastbound automotive/bicycle traffic in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs through the Upper East Side neighborhood (in ZIP code 10021, where it is known as East ...

, with her residence in the rear of the half-basement level. Ward closed the gallery in 1970 and began to travel extensively. On January 6, 1984, Ward died in the residential Hotel Volney in New York City, where she stayed when living in New York. Sources differ about her age at the time of death. Stories about her initial encounter with Warhol differ. In her own telling, Warhol: ''was brought into the gallery by de Antonio, and I immediately liked Andy as a person... the gallery was, at that time, completely booked up... but in May or June... I had to ask an artist - very prominent n fact, Alex Katz- to leave the gallery... He had been scheduled for an exhibition in November... but this was in June and the gallery was about to close - and I spent my summers in Connecticut then - and I decided I wasn't going to worry about it or think about it, but the right thing would happen at the right time. And I had a lovely ice house in Connecticut outside of Old Lyme - a reconverted ice house; it was enchanting... and I was out on the lawn one summer, a lazy summer afternoon, sunning, reading, and John edenkapp an old friend, an architect, was there, and I was lying there on my back, sunning, with my eyes closed, not thinking about anything in the world, and suddenly a voice said, 'Andy Warhol.' I hadn't been thinking about artists, I hadn't been thinking about the art world. I hadn't been thinking about the gallery. Everything was utterly remote. I sat up and thought, 'How extraordinary!' My guardian angel.''

Legacy

The Stable Gallery archives and some personal papers from Ward are included in the

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

An audio interview of Ward, housed there, was conducted February 8, 1972, by art historian Paul Cummings (Detroit Lakes, Minn., 1933 – New York City 1993), formerly the director of the Archive's Oral History Program.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ward, Eleanor 1910s births 1984 deaths American art dealers American women art dealers American art collectors