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Past Exhibitions
All Good Art is Political
Käthe Kollwitz and Sue Coe
October 26, 2017 - March 10, 2018
Recent Acquisitions
(And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
July 11, 2017 - October 13, 2017
The Woman Question
Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka
March 14, 2017 - June 30, 2017
You Say You Want a Revolution
American Artists and the Communist Party
October 18, 2016 - March 4, 2017
Recent Acquisitions
(And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
July 12, 2016 - October 7, 2016
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Featuring Watercolors and Drawings from the Robert Lehman Collection
March 29, 2016 - July 1, 2016
Paula Modersohn-Becker
Art and Life
November 3, 2015 - March 19, 2016
Recent Acquisitions
(And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
July 21, 2015 - October 16, 2015
Leonard Baskin
Wunderkammer
April 23, 2015 - July 2, 2015
Alternate Histories
Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the Galerie St. Etienne
January 15, 2015 - April 11, 2015
Marie-Louise Motesiczky
The Mother Paintings
October 7, 2014 - December 24, 2014
Recent Acquisitions
(And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
July 15, 2014 - September 26, 2014
Ilija/Mangelos
Father & Son, Inside & Out
April 24, 2014 - July 3, 2014
Modern Furies
The Lessons and Legacy of World War I
January 21, 2014 - April 12, 2014
Käthe Kollwitz
The Complete Print Cycles
October 8, 2013 - December 28, 2013
Recent Acquisitions
And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market
July 9, 2013 - September 27, 2013
Face Time
Self and Identity in Expressionist Portraiture
April 9, 2013 - June 28, 2013
Story Lines
Tracing the Narrative of "Outsider" Art
January 15, 2013 - March 30, 2013
Egon Schiele's Women
October 23, 2012 - December 28, 2012
Recent Acquisitions
(And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
July 17, 2012 - October 13, 2012
Mad As Hell!
New Work (and Some Classics) by Sue Coe
April 17, 2012 - July 3, 2012
The Ins and Outs of Self-Taught Art
Reflections on a Shifting Field
January 10, 2012 - April 7, 2012
The Lady and the Tramp
Images of Women in Austrian and German Art
October 11, 2011 - December 30, 2011
Recent Acquisitions
(And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
July 5, 2011 - September 30, 2011
Decadence & Decay
Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz
April 12, 2011 - June 24, 2011
Self-Taught Painters in America 1800-1950
Revisiting the Tradition
January 11, 2011 - April 2, 2011
Marie-Louise Motesiczky
Paradise Lost & Found
October 12, 2010 - December 30, 2010
Recent Acquisitions
(And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
July 13, 2010 - October 1, 2010
Käthe Kollwitz
A Portrait of the Artist
April 13, 2010 - June 25, 2010
Seventy Years Grandma Moses
A Loan Exhibition Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Artist's "Discovery"
February 3, 2010 - April 3, 2010
Egon Schiele as Printmaker
A Loan Exhibition Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Galerie St. Etienne
November 3, 2009 - January 23, 2010
From Brücke To Bauhaus
The Meanings of Modernity in Germany, 1905-1933
March 31, 2009 - June 26, 2009
They Taught Themselves
American Self-Taught Painters Between the World Wars
January 9, 2009 - March 14, 2009
Elephants We Must Never Forget
New Paintings Drawings and Prints by Sue Coe
October 14, 2008 - December 20, 2008
Recent Acquisitions
(And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
June 24, 2008 - September 26, 2008
Hope or Menace?
Communism in Germany Between the World Wars
March 25, 2008 - June 13, 2008
Transforming Reality
Pattern and Design in Modern and Self-Taught Art
January 15, 2008 - March 8, 2008
Leonard Baskin
Proofs and Process
October 9, 2007 - January 5, 2008
Recent Acquisitions
(And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
June 5, 2007 - September 28, 2007
Who Paid the Piper?
The Art of Patronage in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
March 8, 2007 - May 26, 2007
Fairy Tale, Myth and Fantasy
Approaches to Spirituality in Art
December 7, 2006 - February 3, 2007
More Than Coffee was Served
Café Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna and Weimar Germany
September 19, 2006 - November 25, 2006
Recent Acquisitions
(And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
June 6, 2006 - September 8, 2006
Parallel Visions II
"Outsider" and "Insider" Art Today
April 5, 2006 - May 26, 2006
Ilija!
His First American Exhibtion
January 17, 2006 - March 18, 2006
Coming of Age
Egon Schiele and the Modernist Culture of Youth
November 15, 2005 - January 7, 2006
Sue Coe:
Sheep of Fools
September 20, 2005 - November 5, 2005
Recent Acquisitions
And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market
June 7, 2005 - September 9, 2005
Every Picture Tells a Story
The Narrative Impulse in Modern and Contemporary Art
April 5, 2005 - May 27, 2005
65th Anniversary Exhibition, Part II
Self-Taught Artists
January 18, 2005 - March 26, 2005
65th Anniversary Exhibition, Part I
Austrian and German Expressionism
October 28, 2004 - January 8, 2005
Sue Coe: Bully: Master of the Global Merry-Go-Round and Recent Acquisitions
(And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
June 8, 2004 - October 16, 2004
Animals & Us
The Animal in Contemporary Art
April 1, 2004 - May 22, 2004
Henry Darger
Art and Myth
January 15, 2004 - March 20, 2004
Body and Soul
Expressionism and the Human Figure
October 7, 2003 - January 3, 2004
Recent Acquisitions
(And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
June 24, 2003 - September 12, 2003
In Search of the "Total Artwork"
Viennese Art and Design 1897–1932
April 8, 2003 - June 14, 2003
Russia's Self-Taught Artists
A New Perspective on the "Outsider"
January 14, 2003 - March 29, 2003
Käthe Kollwitz:
Master Printmaker
October 1, 2002 - January 4, 2003
Recent Acquisitions
(And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
June 25, 2002 - September 20, 2002
Workers of the World
Modern Images of Labor
April 2, 2002 - June 15, 2002
Grandma Moses
Reflections of America
January 15, 2002 - March 16, 2002
Gustav Klimt/Egon Schiele/Oskar Kokoscha
From Art Nouveau to Expressionism
November 23, 2001 - January 5, 2002
The "Black-and-White" Show
Expressionist Graphics in Austria & Germany
September 20, 2001 - November 10, 2001
Recent Acquisitions (And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
June 26, 2001 - September 7, 2001
Art with an Agenda
Politics, Persuasion, Illustration and Decoration
April 10, 2001 - June 16, 2001
"Our Beautiful and Tormented Austria!": Art Brut in the Land of Freud
January 18, 2001 - March 17, 2001
The Tragedy of War
November 16, 2000 - January 6, 2001
The Expressionist City
September 19, 2000 - November 4, 2000
Recent Acquisitions (And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
June 20, 2000 - September 8, 2000
From Façade to Psyche
Turn-of-the-Century Portraiture in Austria & Germany
March 28, 2000 - June 10, 2000
European Self-Taught Art
Brut or Naive?
January 18, 2000 - March 11, 2000
Saved From Europe
In Commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the Galerie St. Etienne
November 6, 1999 - January 8, 2000
The Modern Child
(Images of Children in Twentieth-Century Art)
September 14, 1999 - November 6, 1999
Recent Acquisitions
(And a Look at Sixty Years of Art Dealing)
June 15, 1999 - September 3, 1999
Sue Coe: The Pit
The Tragical Tale of the Rise and Fall of a Vivisector
March 30, 1999 - June 5, 1999
Henry Darger and His Realms
January 14, 1999 - March 13, 1999
Becoming Käthe Kollwitz
An Artist and Her Influences
November 17, 1998 - December 31, 1998
George Grosz - Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler
Art & Gender in Weimar Germany
September 23, 1998 - November 11, 1998
Recent Acquisitions
(And Some Thoughts About Looted Art)
June 9, 1998 - September 11, 1998
Taboo
Repression and Revolt in Modern Art
March 26, 1998 - May 30, 1998
Sacred & Profane
Michel Nedjar and Expressionist Primitivism
January 13, 1998 - March 14, 1998
Egon Schiele (1890-1918)
Master Draughtsman
November 18, 1997 - January 3, 1998
The New Objectivity
Realism in Weimar-Era Germany
September 16, 1997 - November 8, 1997
Recent Acquisitions
A Question of Quality
June 10, 1997 - September 5, 1997
Käthe Kollwitz - Lea Grundig
Two German Women & The Art of Protest
March 25, 1997 - May 31, 1997
That Way Madness Lies
Expressionism and the Art of Gugging
January 14, 1997 - March 15, 1997
The Viennese Line
Art and Design Circa 1900
November 18, 1996 - January 4, 1997
Emil Nolde - Christian Rohlfs
Two German Expressionist Masters
September 24, 1996 - November 9, 1996
Breaking All The Rules
Art in Transition
June 11, 1996 - September 6, 1996
Sue Coe's Ship of Fools
March 26, 1996 - May 24, 1996
New York Folk
Lawrence Lebduska, Abraham Levin, Isreal Litwak
January 16, 1996 - March 16, 1996
The Fractured Form
Expressionism and the Human Body
November 15, 1995 - January 6, 1996
From Left to Right
Social Realism in Germany and Russia, Circa 1919-1933
September 19, 1995 - November 4, 1995
Recent Acquisitions
June 20, 1995 - September 8, 1995
On the Brink 1900-2000
The Turning of Two Centuries
March 28, 1995 - May 26, 1995
Earl Cummingham - Grandma Moses
Visions of America
January 17, 1995 - March 18, 1995
Drawn to Text: Comix Artists as Book Illustrators
November 15, 1994 - January 7, 1995
Three Berlin Artists of the Weimar Era: Hannah Höch, Käthe Kollwitz, Jeanne Mam
September 13, 1994 - November 5, 1994
55th Anniversary Exhibition in Memory of Otto Kallir
June 7, 1994 - September 2, 1994
Sue Coe: We All Fall Down
March 29, 1994 - May 27, 1994
The Forgotten Folk Art of the 1940's
January 18, 1994 - March 19, 1994
Symbolism and the Austrian Avant Garde
Klimt, Schiele and their Contemporaries
November 16, 1993 - January 8, 1994
Art and Politics in Weimar Germany
September 14, 1993 - November 6, 1993
Recent Acquisitions
June 8, 1993 - September 3, 1993
The "Outsider" Question
Non-Academic Art from 1900 to the Present
March 23, 1993 - May 28, 1993
The Dance of Death
Images of Mortality in German Art
January 19, 1993 - March 13, 1993
Art Spiegelman
The Road to Maus
November 17, 1992 - January 9, 1993
Käthe Kollwitz
In Celebration of the 125th Anniversary of the Artist's Birth
September 15, 1992 - November 7, 1992
Naive Visions/Art Nouveau and Expressionism/Sue Coe: The Road to the White House
May 19, 1992 - September 4, 1992
Richard Gerstl/Oskar Kokoschka
March 17, 1992 - May 9, 1992
Scandal, Outrage, Censorship
Controversy in Modern Art
January 21, 1992 - March 7, 1992
Viennese Graphic Design
From Secession to Expressionism
November 19, 1991 - January 11, 1992
The Expressionist Figure
September 10, 1991 - November 9, 1991
Recent Acquisitions
Themes and Variations
May 14, 1991 - August 16, 1991
Sue Coe Retrospective
Political Document of a Decade
March 12, 1991 - May 5, 1991
Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka
Watercolors, drawings and prints
January 22, 1991 - March 2, 1991
Egon Schiele
November 13, 1990 - January 12, 1991
Lovis Corinth
A Retrospective
September 11, 1990 - November 3, 1990
Recent Acquisitions
June 12, 1990 - August 31, 1990
Max Klinger, Käthe Kollwitz, Alfred Kubin
A Study in Influences
March 27, 1990 - June 2, 1990
The Narrative in Art
January 23, 1990 - March 17, 1990
Grandma Moses
November 14, 1989 - January 13, 1990
Sue Coe
Porkopolis--Animals and Industry
September 19, 1989 - November 4, 1989
The Galerie St. Etienne
A History in Documents and Pictures
June 20, 1989 - September 8, 1989
Gustav Klimt
Paintings and Drawings
April 11, 1989 - June 10, 1989
Fifty Years Galerie St. Etienne: An Overview
February 14, 1989 - April 1, 1989
Folk Artists at Work
Morris Hirshfield, John Kane and Grandma Moses
November 15, 1988 - January 14, 1989
Recent Acquisitions and Works From the Collection
June 14, 1988 - September 16, 1988
From Art Nouveau to Expressionism
April 12, 1988 - May 27, 1988
Three Pre-Expressionists
Lovis Corinth Käthe Kollwitz Paula Modersohn-Becker
January 26, 1988 - March 12, 1988
Käthe Kollwitz
The Power of the Print
November 17, 1987 - January 16, 1988
Recent Acquisitions and Works From the Collection
April 7, 1987 - October 31, 1987
Folk Art of This Century
February 10, 1987 - March 28, 1987
Oskar Kokoschka and His Time
November 25, 1986 - January 31, 1987
Viennese Design and Wiener Werkstätte
September 23, 1986 - November 8, 1986
Gustav Klimt/Egon Schiele/Oskar Kokoschka
Watercolors, Drawings and Prints
May 27, 1986 - September 13, 1986
Expressionist Painters
March 25, 1986 - May 10, 1986
Käthe Kollwitz/Paula Modersohn-Becker
January 28, 1986 - March 15, 1986
The Art of Giving
December 3, 1985 - January 18, 1986
Expressionists on Paper
October 8, 1985 - November 23, 1985
European and American Landscapes
June 4, 1985 - September 13, 1985
Expressionist Printmaking
Aspects of its Genesis and Development
April 1, 1985 - May 24, 1985
Expressionist Masters
January 18, 1985 - March 23, 1985
Arnold Schoenberg's Vienna
November 13, 1984 - January 5, 1985
Grandma Moses and Selected Folk Paintings
September 25, 1984 - November 3, 1984
American Folk Art
People, Places and Things
June 12, 1984 - September 14, 1984
John Kane
Modern America's First Folk Painter
April 17, 1984 - May 25, 1984
Eugène Mihaesco
The Illustrator as Artist
February 28, 1984 - April 7, 1984
Early Expressionist Masters
January 17, 1984 - February 18, 1984
Paula Modersohn-Becker
Germany's Pioneer Modernist
November 15, 1983 - January 7, 1984
Gustav Klimt
Drawings and Selected Paintings
September 20, 1983 - November 5, 1983
Early and Late
Drawings, Paintings & Prints from Academicism to Expressionism
June 1, 1983 - September 2, 1983
Alfred Kubin
Visions From The Other Side
March 22, 1983 - May 7, 1983
20th Century Folk
The First Generation
January 18, 1983 - March 12, 1983
Grandma Moses
The Artist Behind the Myth
November 15, 1982 - January 8, 1983
Käthe Kollwitz
The Artist as Printmaker
September 28, 1982 - November 6, 1982
Aspects of Modernism
June 1, 1982 - September 3, 1982
The Human Perspective
Recent Acquisitions
March 16, 1982 - May 15, 1982
19th and 20th Century European and American Folk Art
January 19, 1982 - March 6, 1982
The Folk Art Tradition
Naïve Painting in Europe and the United States
November 17, 1981 - January 9, 1982
Austria's Expressionism
April 21, 1981 - May 30, 1981
Eugène Mihaesco
His First American One-Man Show
March 3, 1981 - April 11, 1981
Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele
November 12, 1980 - December 27, 1980
Summer Exhibition
June 17, 1980 - October 31, 1980
Kollwitz: The Drawing and The Print
May 1, 1980 - June 10, 1980
40th Anniversary Exhibition
November 13, 1979 - December 28, 1979
American Primitive Art
November 22, 1977
Käthe Kollwitz
December 1, 1976
Neue Galerie-Galerie St. Etienne
A Documentary Exhibition
May 1, 1976
Martin Pajeck
January 27, 1976
Georges Rouault and Frans Masereel
April 29, 1972
Branko Paradis
December 1, 1971
Käthe Kollwitz
February 3, 1971
Egon Schiele
The Graphic Work
October 19, 1970
Gustav Klimt
March 20, 1970
Friedrich Hundertwasser
May 6, 1969
Austrian Art of the 20th Century
March 21, 1969
Egon Schiele
Memorial Exhibition
October 31, 1968
Yugoslav Primitive Art
April 30, 1968
Alfred Kubin
January 30, 1968
Käthe Kollwitz
In the Cause of Humanity
October 23, 1967
Abraham Levin
September 26, 1967
Karl Stark
April 5, 1967
Gustav Klimt
February 4, 1967
The Wiener Werkstätte
November 16, 1966
Oskar Laske
October 25, 1965
Käthe Kollwitz
May 1, 1965
Egon Schiele
Watercolors and Drawings from American Collections
March 1, 1965
25th Anniversary Exhibition
Part II
November 21, 1964
25th Anniversary Exhibition
Part I
October 17, 1964
Mary Urban
June 9, 1964
Werner Berg, Jane Muus and Mura Dehn
May 5, 1964
Eugen Spiro
April 4, 1964
B. F. Dolbin
Drawings of an Epoch
March 3, 1964
Austrian Expressionists
January 6, 1964
Joseph Rifesser
December 3, 1963
Panorama of Yugoslav Primitive Art
October 21, 1963
Joe Henry
Watercolors of Vermont
May 1, 1963
French Impressionists
March 8, 1963
Grandma Moses
Memorial Exhibition
November 26, 1962
Group Show
October 15, 1962
Ernst Barlach
March 23, 1962
Martin Pajeck
February 24, 1962
Paintings by Expressionists
January 27, 1962
Käthe Kollwitz
November 11, 1961
Grandma Moses
September 7, 1961
My Friends
Fourth Biennial of Pictures by American School Children
May 27, 1961
Raimonds Staprans
April 17, 1961
Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka and Alfred Kubin
March 14, 1961
Marvin Meisels
January 23, 1961
Egon Schiele
November 15, 1960
My Life's History
Paintings by Grandma Moses
September 12, 1960
Watercolors and Drawings by Austrian Artists from the Dial Collection
May 2, 1960
Martin Pajeck
February 29, 1960
Eugen Spiro
February 6, 1960
Käthe Kollwitz
December 14, 1959
Josef Scharl
Last Paintings and Drawings
November 11, 1959
European and American Expressionists
September 22, 1959
Our Town
One Hundred Paintings by American School Children
May 23, 1959
Marvin Meisels and Martin Pajeck
May 1, 1959
Gustav Klimt
April 1, 1959
Käthe Kollwitz
January 12, 1959
Oskar Kokoschka
October 28, 1958
Village Life in Guatemala
Paintings by Andres Curuchich
June 3, 1958
Two Unknown American Expressionists
Paintings by Marvin Meisels and Martin Pajeck
April 28, 1958
Paula Modersohn-Becker
March 15, 1958
The Great Tradition in American Painting
American Primitive Art
January 20, 1958
Jules Lefranc and Dominique Lagru
Two French Primitives
November 18, 1957
Margret Bilger
October 22, 1957
The Four Seasons
One Hundred Paintings by American School Children
June 11, 1957
Grandma Moses
May 6, 1957
Alfred Kubin
April 3, 1957
Franz Lerch
March 2, 1957
Egon Schiele
January 21, 1957
Josef Scharl
Memorial Exhibition
November 17, 1956
Irma Rothstein
May 19, 1956
Käthe Kollwitz
April 16, 1956
A Tribute to Grandma Moses
November 28, 1955
As I See Myself
One Hundred Paintings by American School Children
May 20, 1955
Juan De'Prey
April 19, 1955
Erich Heckel
March 29, 1955
Freddy Homburger
March 2, 1955
Masters of the 19th Century
January 18, 1955
Oskar Kokoschka
November 29, 1954
Isabel Case Borgatta and Josef Scharl
October 12, 1954
James N. Rosenberg and Eugen Spiro
April 30, 1954
Per Krogh
April 2, 1954
Cuno Amiet
February 16, 1954
Eniar Jolin
January 14, 1954
Irma Rothstein
December 8, 1953
Josef Scharl
November 11, 1953
Grandma Moses
October 21, 1953 - October 24, 1953
Wilhelm Kaufmann
September 30, 1953
Lovis Corinth, Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele
May 27, 1953
A Grandma Moses Album
Recent Paintings, 1950-1953
April 15, 1953
Streeter Blair
American Primitive
February 26, 1953
Paintings on Glass
Austrian Religious Folk Art of the 17th to 19th Centuries
December 4, 1952
Hasan Kaptan
Paintings of a Ten-Year-Old Turkish Painter
October 29, 1952
Margret Bilger
May 10, 1952
American Natural Painters
March 31, 1952
Ten Years of New York Concert Impressions by Eugen Spiro; Four New Paintings by
January 26, 1952
I-Fa-Wei
Watercolors of New York by a Chinese Artist
December 1, 1951
Käthe Kollwitz
October 25, 1951
Drawings and Watercolors by Austrian Children
May 21, 1951
Grandma Moses
Twenty-Five Masterpieces of Primitive Art
March 17, 1951
Roswitha Bitterlich
January 18, 1951
Oskar Laske
Watercolors of Vienna and the Salzkammergut
October 14, 1950
Tenth Anniversary Exhibition
Part II
May 11, 1950
Austrian Art of the 19th Century
From Wadlmüller to Klimt
April 1, 1950
Chiao Ssu-Tu
February 18, 1950
Anton Faistauer
January 1, 1950
Tenth Anniversary Exhibition
Part I
November 30, 1949
Autograph Exhibition
October 26, 1949
Gladys Wertheim Bachrach
May 24, 1949
Oskar Kokoschka
March 30, 1949
Eugen Spiro
February 19, 1949
Frans Masereel
January 13, 1949
Ten Years Grandma Moses
November 22, 1948
Käthe Kollwitz
Masterworks
October 18, 1948
American Primitives
June 3, 1948
Egon Schiele
Memorial Exhibition
April 5, 1948
Miriam Richman
February 7, 1948
Vally Wieselthier
Memorial Exhibition
January 10, 1948
Christmas Exhibition
December 4, 1947
Fritz von Unruh
November 10, 1947
Käthe Kollwitz
October 4, 1947
Grandma Moses
May 17, 1947
Lovis Corinth
April 16, 1947
Hugo Steiner-Prag
March 15, 1947
Mark Baum
January 11, 1947
Eugen Spiro
November 25, 1946
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
May 17, 1946
Ladis W. Sabo
Paintings by a New Primitive Artist
April 8, 1946
Georges Rouault
The Graphic Work
February 26, 1946
Käthe Kollwitz
Memorial Exhibition
November 21, 1945
Fred E. Robertson
Paintings by an American Primitive
June 13, 1945
Max Liebermann
The Graphic Work
April 18, 1945
Vienna through Four Centuries
March 1, 1945
Eugen Spiro
January 20, 1945
Grandma Moses
New Paintings
December 5, 1944
Käthe Kollwitz
Part II
October 26, 1944
A Century of French Graphic Art
From Géricault to Picasso
September 28, 1944
Max Liebermann
Memorial Exhibition
June 9, 1944
Juan De'Prey
Paintings by a Self-Taught Artist from Puerto Rico
May 6, 1944
Abraham Levin
April 15, 1944
Lesser Ury
Memorial Exhibition
March 21, 1944
Grandma Moses
Paintings by the Senior of the American Primitives
February 9, 1944
Betty Lane
January 11, 1944
WaIt Disney Cavalcade
December 9, 1943
Käthe Kollwitz
Part I
November 3, 1943
Will Barnet
September 29, 1943
Lovis Corinth
May 26, 1943
Josephine Joy
Paintings by an American Primitive
May 3, 1943
Oskar Kokoschka
Aspects of His Art
March 31, 1943
Eugen Spiro
February 13, 1943
Seymour Lipton
January 18, 1943
Illuminated Gothic Woodcuts
Printed and Painted, 1477-1493
December 5, 1942
Abraham Levin
November 4, 1942
Walt Disney Originals
September 23, 1942
Documents which Relate History
Documents of Historical Importance and Landmarks of Human Development
June 10, 1942
Honoré Daumier
April 29, 1942
Bertha Trabich
Memorial Exhibition of a Russian-American Primitive
March 25, 1942
Alfred Kubin
Master of Drawing
December 4, 1941
Egon Schiele
November 7, 1941
Betty Lane
June 3, 1941
Flowers from Old Vienna
18th and Early 19th Century Flower Painting
May 7, 1941
Weavings by Navaho and Hopi Indians and Photos of Indians by Helen M. Post
January 29, 1941
Georg Merkel
November 7, 1940
What a Farm Wife Painted
Works by Mrs. Anna Mary Moses
October 9, 1940
Saved from Europe
Masterpieces of European Art
July 1, 1940
American Abstract Art
May 22, 1940
Franz Lerch
May 1, 1940
Wilhelm Thöny
April 3, 1940
French Masters of the 19th and 20th Centuries
February 29, 1940
H. W. Hannau
Metropolis, Photographic Studies of New York
February 2, 1940
Oskar Kokoschka
January 9, 1940
Austrian Masters
November 13, 1939
SUE COE: BULLY: MASTER OF THE GLOBAL MERRY-GO-ROUND AND RECENT ACQUISITIONS
(And Some Thoughts on the Current Art Market)
ARTISTS
Barlach, Ernst
Basicevic, Ilija Bosilj
Bauchant, André
Beckmann, Max
Coe, Sue
Darger, Henry
Felixmüller, Conrad
Garber, Johann
Grosz, George
Heartfield, John
Heckel, Erich
Kernbeis, Franz
Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig
Kollwitz, Käthe
Moses, Anna Mary Robertson ("Grandma")
Mueller, Otto
Nedjar, Michel
Noelker, Frank
Pechstein, Hermann Max
Rädler, Josef Karl
Reisenbauer, Heinrich
Schiele, Egon
Schmidt-Rottluff, Karl
Walla, August
ESSAY
This is the Galerie St. Etienne’s third “state of the market” report since September 11, 2001. It is hard to believe that nearly three years have passed since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. The shadow of 9/11 hangs over us not so much because the wounds inflicted that day remain raw (though they of course do for some), as because of the lingering volatility and uncertainty, the uncanny mix of the familiar with the unfamiliar. Periods of paralyzing fear—in the last months of 2001 and the first half of 2003, just prior to and during the Iraq war—alternate with narcotizing excesses of consumption. Shopping—for home upgrades, meals at hip restaurants and, yes, art—is our drug of choice. Yet the fear remains. It is fitting that politicians and the news media long ago shortened the phrase “war on terrorism” to “war on terror.” Americans do not deal with the relentless, almost daily acts of terrorism found in countries like Israel, but rather with the far more nebulous presence of terror itself. Fear, as much as anything else, is responsible for the polarization that has beset American politics in these last three years. Fear prompts some people to believe desperately in the President’s righteousness, and others to feel bitterly betrayed by our government. The 2004 presidential election will pit these two types of terror against one another; it will be in part a referendum on fear.
The cycles of fear and consumption that have gripped America in the last three years have been alternately bad and good for the art market. When people feel vulnerable and financially insecure, art is regarded as a luxury that can be easily jettisoned. It has not helped that the center of America’s art market, New York, is both literally and figuratively the site of “ground zero” in the war on terrorism. When the atmosphere turns fearful, people stop coming to New York, and all local businesses, including purveyors of art, suffer accordingly. At the moment--a year after major combat operations in Iraq supposedly ended, several months after the capture of Saddam Hussein, and with the economy showing some signs of a genuine recovery--Americans feel relatively secure. But given the mounting American casualties and terrorist attacks in Iraq and elsewhere, we should all be aware of how quickly that apparent security can vanish.
While the New York art market has endured several periods of profound stagnation since September 2001, prices never collapsed. And some areas, especially blue-chip modern masters and cutting-edge contemporary art, have flourished. Art, like real estate, can be viewed simultaneously as an investment and as a source of personal comfort and enjoyment. Both the real estate and art markets have benefited from the impulse to turn inward, to “nest,” that followed the terrorist attacks. Historically low interest rates, too, have fueled each market. Regardless of whether one leverages one’s purchases (as some collectors do), during the last three or four years art has generally seemed a smarter place to invest than a bank or the stock market. Consequently, a great deal of attention and cash have been expended on so-called trophy material. Some people have naturally taken advantage of escalating prices to divest their holdings, but for others, rising prices actually provide a disincentive to sell. Collectors (especially those who own extraordinary works) fear that if they sell they will never again be able to acquire similar pieces at affordable prices. So a dwindling supply of choice items combines with red-hot demand to spur further price increases.
But the recent art boom has been lopsided. The focus on high-end material, often aided and abetted by auction-house p.r., conceals a vast and frequently foundering middle market. At the New York auctions this spring, the $104 million Picasso eclipsed a flurry of far more anemic results. For some years now, the Galerie St. Etienne’s annual state-of-the market report has chronicled this bifurcation of the art market: the increasingly massive differential between the values placed on supposed masterpieces and everything else, and the sometimes arbitrary factors that separate the two classes of art. However, although the two-tiered market has produced some disturbing and unjustifiable inequities in value, our lopsided market is also in part an organic outgrowth of pervasive, well-established demographic trends.
With far more wealth concentrated at the top of the economic pyramid, and successful baby-boomers at the peak of their earning power, there is simply more money now being directed at a relatively limited supply of prestige artworks. A willingness to pay an exceptional premium for status products that are only marginally better in quality—for example, the vodka in the frosted-glass rather than the clear bottle—has today become integral to American consumption patterns. What we are witnessing, in effect, is a comparable “branding” of art. A premium is being exacted for signature works by “name-brand” artists, be they established masters such as Picasso or hot newcomers like John Currin. We all know, however, that nothing is as fickle as taste, and the dustbin of art history is full of now unknown artists who were once hot. Even when dealing with a master such as Picasso, whose importance in art history is unlikely to change, one must wonder whether the artist’s “signature” works—those that are bold, bright and scream “Picasso” from across the room—are necessarily his best. Yes, some works become icons for valid reasons, but great art is not always pretty or easily recognized.
So one must ask oneself: does the aesthetic value of a work of art invariably determine its market value, or is it the market that today influences our assessment of a work’s aesthetic merit? Almost thirty years have elapsed since Tom Wolfe wrote The Painted Word, a send-up of the then seemingly all powerful art press. No critic today has the power of a Clement Greenberg or a Harold Rosenberg. Multiculturalism and contextualisation, while necessary correctives to the formalist biases of the Greenberg era, have caused academics to shy away from qualitative judgements. In our museums, the curator’s voice is often muffled by the need to mount crowd-pleasing blockbusters or to mollify corporate sponsors and wealthy trustees (most of whom have their own collecting agendas). For the moment at least, it does seem that the connoiseurship of the marketplace rules.
Despite the burst stock-market bubble of the late 1990s, Americans retain a simplistic faith in markets. Markets, it is said, are perfect, because they self-regulate. Markets do generally self-regulate, but only over the long term; on any given day, prices can be wildly off base. This is especially true of auction prices, the art market’s most public face. Whereas stock fluctuations can be tracked on a daily basis, major auctions take place only twice a year, in the spring and the fall. They are thus easily influenced by circumstances (positive or negative) peculiar to the specific sale date. Collectors are reassured by the hypothetical presence of an underbidder at auction, but sometimes there is no underbidder. When works sell at or below the low estimate, as they often do, the buyer has probably been bidding against the undisclosed reserve. Even when a lot soars above the high estimate, it usually comes down to a mere two bidders. Remove one of these, and the price would tumble back. The competitive excitement of an auction sale can stimulate irrational overbidding, but, for reasons no more rational, it can also happen that perfectly good works fail to inspire adequate competitive interest. Many works sold at auction in these past years have brought far less than they could and should have if sold privately, and those rare works sold for “trophy” prices may well not prove readily resalable at comparable levels. In most auctions, at least 10% to 20% of the lots fail to sell at all.
While the semi-annual auctions give a momentary read on the market, dealers, who are in the market year-round, are usually in a better position to price works fairly for both buyers and sellers. Time and in-depth experience are needed not only to value art accurately, but to promote it successfully. Dealers are often able to develop more focused expertise than auctioneers, who of necessity must cover relatively broad territories. The now-or-never aspect of auction sales works against subtle or difficult works, which require repeated viewing and contemplation to be fully appreciated. A department head at one of the major auction houses recently commented that he must generate $100 million in sales every six months in order to keep his job. With that kind of bottom-line pressure, auctioneers tend to concentrate most of their energies on multi-million-dollar lots. There is little incentive to pay much attention to works valued at less than several hundred-thousand dollars. At the same time, desperate to woo consignments from the dwindling pool of sellers, auctioneers inevitably overestimate some properties or bow to the demands of overly ambitious sellers. Sometimes the gamble pays off, and sometimes it doesn’t. Under these circumstances, it is easy to understand why the middle market is foundering.
It is impossible to predict how present market trends will ultimately play out. The occasionally wild price swings seen at auction make it difficult for all players—sellers, buyers, dealers and auctioneers—to coherently evaluate art, and this uncertainty could eventually erode confidence in the art market as a whole. When prices escalate as rapidly as some have in the past year, there is always the danger that a bubble has been created. To the extent that today’s boom is based on leveraged purchases, rising interest rates and a need to recoup investments quickly could spell trouble. On the other hand, if the economy does rebound, savvy collectors may recognize that there are bargains to be had in the presently under-valued middle market. Some of the market fluctuations we are witnessing today are the result of short-term trends: low interest rates, the aftermath of the dot-com bust and 9/11. Others seem to be based on more deeply entrenched changes in collector demographics and tastes. Nevertheless, insofar as today’s dominant collectors are ruled by momentary fashion, their impact on market values may prove equally fleeting. The Galerie St. Etienne’s market reports always lead to the same conclusion, because there really is only one conclusion when it comes to collecting: it takes time, knowledge and passion to collect successfully. If you follow those rules, you really can’t go wrong, because no matter what happens to the value of what you buy, you will have a great time.
The Galerie St. Etienne’s 2004 summer exhibition is given a slightly atypical slant by the forthcoming presidential election. An important component of the show is Sue Coe’s new series, Bully: Master of the Global Merry-Go-Round, an examination of the Bush administration. It will come as little surprise to followers of Coe’s career to learn that she is no admirer of George Bush (the “bully” in her title). Like the work of the Weimar-era artists George Grosz and John Heartfield (with which it is paired), Bully is an impassioned protest against the abrogation of democratic and human rights. In these meticulously wrought, finely detailed small drawings, Coe documents what she perceives as the Bush administration's manifold failings. Right-wing Christians, convinced that “God is on our side,” echo the motto that was inscribed on German soldiers’ belt buckles in World War I, and that Grosz lambasted in a series of that title. Expert marksmen, egged on by Rupert Murdoch (the owner of Fox News), take aim at the First Amendment in a carnival shooting gallery. Like Max Beckmann’s 1921 print cycle, The Annual Fair, many of the Bully images employ carnival or amusement-park metaphors. However, one of Coe’s most poignant drawings depicts the artist, a resident alien in this country, being fingerprinted by the U.S. Immigration Service. The capstone of the series, a miniature pastiche of Bruegel’s Triumph of Death, is a denunciation of all ideological or religious fundamentalism, and a plea for universal respect and empathy.
The remainder of the Recent Acquisitions exhibition follows our usual practice: recapping highlights of the season just past, while augmenting them with new inventory additions. Among the contemporary artists in our spring exhibition, Animals & Us, Frank Noelker (along with Sue Coe) is making a return appearance in the summer show. Several of Noelker’s Zoo Portraits (just published in book form) are augmented by works from his new series, Chimps. Our fall exhibition, Body & Soul: Expressionism and the Human Figure, enabled us to acquire some striking woodcuts, lithographs and watercolors by such masters as Erich Heckel, E. L. Kirchner, Otto Mueller, Hermann Max Pechstein and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. These German works contrast markedly with the more realistic, delicate drawings of the Austrian Egon Schiele. The art of Käthe Kollwitz, another Galerie St. Etienne favorite, draws upon the tradition of expressive figuration developed in Germany prior to World War I, but links Expressionism to the sociopolitical concerns that came to dominate art during the Weimar era.
The Galerie St. Etienne’s other principal area of expertise, “outsider” art, has been consolidating over the last years. Originally, this field had something of a flea-market aspect: prices were low, quality extremely uneven, but there was always the lure of finding treasure amidst the dross. Today, much of that treasure has been culled, and such masters as Henry Darger are broadly acknowledged within the mainstream art world. Certainly our most successful exhibition of the past season was our Darger retrospective, the first ever to display his work in rough chronological sequence. With inventory in the Darger estate now dwindling, our summer exhibition may represent one of the last opportunities for collectors to see a wide selection of available works in one place.
Overall, there is a dearth of good new American “outsider” material entering the market, but the Galerie St. Etienne has found European self-taught art to be an area where exciting discoveries can still be made. Josef Karl Rädler, whom we introduced in 2001, remains among the most interesting self-taught artists to come on the scene recently. This year, we were extremely fortunate to bring the work of one of Serbia’s greatest self-taught painters, Ilija Bosilj, to the U.S. for the first time. Bosilj achieved major renown throughout Europe in the 1960s and ‘70s, but the Yugoslav civil war effectively kept his work from wider public view for the past decade. Michel Nedjar and the artists of Gugging, whom we have represented for a number of years, likewise demonstrate the exceptional strength of the self-taught work emerging from Europe. And, last but not least, our summer exhibition would not be complete without the paintings of Grandma Moses, who remains, figuratively, the mother of them all.
Another new wrinkle to the Galerie St. Etienne’s summer schedule is our participation in the Basel Art Fair, which takes place this year from June 16 to 22. Art fairs in and of themselves are nothing new; Art Basel, one of the largest and most prestigious of the European fairs, will be celebrating its 35th anniversary. However, the importance of such fairs has arguably increased in the post-9/11 world. Today, “mega-events” like Basel—with their plethora of high-caliber dealers, art and ancillary programming—offer a greater draw for collectors than the semi-annual auction weeks in New York and London. Moreover, globalization and a decline in air travel have made it more necessary for dealers to bring their wares to clients in other cities. Both the roster of significant collectors and the art they buy are becoming more and more international. As documented in Sue Coe’s Bully drawings, globalization has had many pernicious effects, including corporatized imperialism and an attendant rise in terrorism. But it must also be said that art represents the best aspects of globalization: tangible evidence of a shared humanity that transcends boundaries of nationality, ethnicity and religion.
Copies of Sue Coe’s Bully: Master of the Global Merry-Go-Round may be ordered from the gallery for $18.00 in paperback. Frank Noelker’s book Captive Beauty: Zoo Portraits is available for $50.00 in hardcover, or $25.00 in paperback. If you order by mail, please add $8.00 per book to cover shipping and handling; New York residents, also add sales tax. Checklist entries include catalogue raisonné numbers, where applicable. Unless otherwise indicated, image dimensions are given for the prints and full dimensions for all other works, including photographs.