20th Century And Selected Contemporary American Art
Kraushaar Galleries was founded in 1885 by Charles W. Kraushaar who had been with the Schaus Gallery, a respected European art gallery of the early 1880s. In business for himself at the Gallery's first location on Broadway at 33rd street, Charles took summer trips to Europe to bring back Dutch and French Barbizon paintings, as well as works by Courbet, Corot, Whistler and Fantin-Latour. Soon after its opening, Charles' younger brother John joined the business and added modern French painters: Soutine, Matisse, Roualt, Modigliani, Redon, an occasional Picasso and others of the late 19th and early 20th century.
John Kraushaar became increasingly interested in the Americans; he was most enthusiastic about the work of Robert Henri and his circle, and in particular the group known as "The Eight," Henri, John Sloan, William Glackens, Everett Shinn, George Luks, Maurice Prendergast, Ernest Lawson and Arthur B. Davies. One of the first to be represented at Kraushaar Galleries was Luks, whom John had met as a young man on the baseball diamonds of Long Island, followed by Sloan and Glackens. Later came Maurice Prendergast, Guy Pène du Bois and occasional showings of Shinn, Lawson, and the modernists Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley and Gaston Lachaise.
Kraushaar Galleries, like Macbeth Galleries and later Charles Daniel, provided support and encouragement for these American artists. By continuously presenting exhibitions of these relative unknowns, they are cited for helping to encourage public acceptance of the developments in American art. Sloan, for example, was slow to achieve commercial success. Notwithstanding, John Kraushaar continued to exhibit his work for many decades. Sloan himself acknowledged the importance of the Gallery, and particularly John Kraushaar whom he said "was the most honest dealer in the country." Kraushaar Galleries continues to represent his estate.
John Kraushaar continued the business upon his brother's death in 1917 and, in 1919, moved the Gallery from 260 Fifth Avenue, where it had been located for nineteen years, to 54th and Fifth. It was at this time that his daughter, Antoinette, joined the Gallery as a stenographer. Miss Kraushaar assumed management of the Gallery in 1946. She continued to show the works of the Eight as well as Jerome Myers, Gifford Beal, Louis Bouché, Henry Schnakenberg, Marguerite Zorach and John Koch and added newer American painters, among them John Hartell, John Heliker, William Kienbusch, Joe Lasker, James Lechay, Elsie Manville and Karl Schrag.
Although the Gallery exhibited figurative painting, much of the contemporary work was abstract, including that of Leon Goldin, Carl Morris, and Linda Sokolowski. The during the last twenty years additions to the stable included Tabitha Vevers, Catherine Drabkin, Henry Finkelstein, Kathryn Wall, Lee Walton and the Estates of Dorothy Dehner and of Esphyr Slobodkina.
Kraushaar Galleries at 126, currently at 74 East 79th Street, is now functioning as a private gallery. We continue to represent the work of Catherine Drabkin and Lee Walton while focusing and maintaining our expertise in the art of the first half through the middle of the twentieth century. The president is Carole M. Pesner, and the director is Katherine Degn.
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