Participating artists: Ford Crull, Vincent Hamel, Toon Kuijpers, Donald McLaughlin, Robin Rose, Rebecca Salter, Werner Schmidt, Ken Sofer, Fred Stonehouse, Robert Thiele, William Willis
Howard Scott Gallery is proud to announce the opening of the gallery's 25th Anniversary Exhib... Read more
Participating artists: Ford Crull, Vincent Hamel, Toon Kuijpers, Donald McLaughlin, Robin Rose, Rebecca Salter, Werner Schmidt, Ken Sofer, Fred Stonehouse, Robert Thiele, William Willis
Howard Scott Gallery is proud to announce the opening of the gallery’s 25th Anniversary Exhibition: “They said it wouldn’t last” on Thursday, 9 September 2010, and extending through Saturday, 16 October. Eleven artists will participate in this exhibition, each represented by work not seen previously in public.
Reaching a twenty-fifth anniversary as a gallerist entirely focused on, and dedicated to, the work of both mid-career artists and those just beginning to have public exposure is perhaps analogous to scaling Mount Everest and is certainly cause for celebration.
When Howard Scott prepared to open his first art gallery in the fall of 1983 in the East Village, while that neighborhood was in full bloom as an alternative location (to SoHo) for galleries showing younger artists’ work, he was greatly surprised when more than one member of New York’s visual arts community said of him that there was little chance his gallery could survive – because this was a profession in which Afro-Americans in New York at that time were not involved, and how could he hope to develop a supportive and sufficiently large clientele.
Happily – for the dozens of artists whose work he has championed over the past quarter-century and for the many admirers whose personal art collections he has helped achieve breadth and focus, not to mention for his own self-esteem – he ignored those dire predictions and forged ahead, opening a street level space on East 9th Street, near Tompkins Park.
Although Mr Scott has exhibited the work of a few sculptors over the years, his principal enthusiasm in contemporary visual arts has been the realm of painting, and his lengthy concentration on this ages-old pursuit has contributed importantly to his establishing and maintaining a palpable sensibility for his gallery, and it has required both optimism and an admirable level of discipline on his part to keep that sensibility germane and invigorating.
The eleven artists whose work will compose the 25th Anniversary exhibition were chosen from a larger number of artists whose work he had presented in solo exhibition format at M-13 Gallery (named after the closest city bus line!) and continued to represent during the thirteen years the gallery occupied a classic, high ceilinged, SoHo loft space at 72 Greene Street.
To celebrate the longevity of his gallery, he decided not to include work by the several splendid artists he did not begin representing until after opening the present space in Chelsea in May 2000.
