The Jefferson Place Gallery was an

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long ...

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 ...

, founded in 1957 and closed in 1974. It had been located at 1216 Connecticut Street, NW in Washington, D.C.. The gallery was associated with the Washington Color School artists.

History

The Jefferson Place Gallery was initially founded in 1957 as a cooperative gallery, by five current and former art professors at

American University The American University (AU or American) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Its main campus spans 90-acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, in the Spri ...

, William Howard Calfee, Robert Franklin Gates, Helene Herzbrun, Mary Ryan Orwen, and Ben Summerford. Alice Denney, served as the first gallery director. Other artists who joined the cooperative in 1957 were George Bayliss, Lothar Brabanski, Colin Greenly, Leonard Maurer,

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 as a minimal ...

, and Baltimore-based artist Shelby Shackelford. Nesta Dorrance acquired the gallery from Alice Denney in 1961, when she left to organize the Washington Gallery of Modern Art. Dorrance ran it until it closed in October 1974.

Legacy

The gallery exhibited "advanced art" and was associated with Washington Color School, a color field, post-painterly abstraction and

lyrical abstraction Lyrical abstraction arose from either of two related but distinct art movement, trends in Post-war Modernist painting: * European ''Abstraction Lyrique'': a movement that emerged in Paris, with the French art critic Jean José Marchand being cr ...

for a number of years, and was a major Washington outlet for that art. The competitors in

contemporary art Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

with Nesta Dorrance's Jefferson Place Gallery were Henri Gallery enrietta Ersham Pyramid Gallery amon Osuna and Luis Lastraand later, Protetch-Rivkin Gallery ax Protetch and Harold Rivkin

Artists

Some artists who also exhibited at Jefferson Place Gallery:

Antoinette Pinchot Bradlee Antoinette Eno "Tony" Pinchot Pittman Bradlee (January 15, 1924 – November 9, 2011) was an American socialite, ceramist, and painter. She was the second wife of ''The Washington Post'' editor Ben Bradlee and the sister of Mary Pinchot Meyer, a ...

William Christenberry William Andrew Christenberry Jr. (November 5, 1936 – November 28, 2016) was an American photographer, painter, sculptor, and teacher who drew inspiration from his childhood in Hale County, Alabama.Christenberry, William (September 28, 2007)Tim ...

, Gene Davis, Willem De Looper,

William Eggleston William Eggleston, (born July 27, 1939) is an American photographer. He is widely credited with increasing recognition of color photography as a legitimate artistic medium. Eggleston's books include ''William Eggleston's Guide'' (1976) and ''The ...

Sam Gilliam Sam Gilliam ( ; November 30, 1933 – June 25, 2022) was an American abstract Painting, painter, Sculpture, sculptor, and Visual arts education, arts educator. Born in Mississippi, and raised in Kentucky, Gilliam spent his entire adult life in ...

, John Gossage, Valerie Hollister, Sheila Isham, Jennie Lea Knight, Rockne Krebs, Blaine Larson, Howard Mehring,

Mary Pinchot Meyer Mary Eno Pinchot Meyer (; October 14, 1920 – October 12, 1964) was an American painter who lived in Washington D.C. She was married to Cord Meyer from 1945 to 1958; she became involved romantically with President John F. Kennedy after her ...

, David Moy, Roberto Polo, V. V. Rankine,

Paul Reed (artist) Paul (Allen) Reed (March 28, 1919 – September 26, 2015) was an American artist most associated with the Washington Color School and Color Field Painting. Biography At the time of his death in 2015, Reed was the last living member of the Wa ...

, Eric Rudd,

Yuri Schwebler Yuri "George" Schwebler (1942–1990), was a Yugoslavia-born American conceptual artist and sculptor. He was active in the arts in the 1970s in Washington, D.C., and most notably in February 1974, he transformed the Washington Monument into a sun ...

, Roy Slade, D. Jack Solomon, David Staton, Elliot Thompson, Hilda Shapiro Thorpe,

Frederic Matys Thursz Frederic Matys Thursz (1930–1992) was a Moroccan Abstract art, abstract painter and teacher. He was active in the United States and France. His paintings have been shown at the Galerie Lelong, Jefferson Place Gallery, and in the Documenta 9 exhi ...

, Franklin White, John P. Wise, Mary Orwen, Carroll Sockwell, and Ed Zerne.

References

External links

Thomas Downing Bio

Barbara Freeman Bio

Ben L. Summerford Bio

Thomas George Bio {{Authority control Art museums and galleries in Washington, D.C. Defunct art museums and galleries in the United States Art museums and galleries established in 1957 Art museums and galleries disestablished in 1974 1957 establishments in Washington, D.C. 1974 disestablishments in Washington, D.C.

History

Legacy

Artists

References

Further reading

External links