In the winter of 1951, a young, aspiring art dealer traveled to Europe. With an eye to opening a gallery in his home city of Chicago, he familiarized himself with a generation of surrealist painters and sculptors, meeting an international cohort of artists in Paris, Rome and beyond. A key introduction turned out to be the surrealist painter Roberto Matta, who in turn directed the young Allan Frumkin to Joseph Cornell and others; Henry Moore suggested the sculptures of Germaine Richier, establishing a rule for Frumkin that, “if a serious artist tells you to go and look at somebody, you should go and look.” These artists, in tandem with Frumkin’s own interest in European prints and drawings, would be the foundation of the gallery’s early years.
In a letter to Alberto Burri (whom Allan had met in Rome that first trip), from the summer of 1952, Frumkin apologized for his lack of communication: he was busy setting up his new space - a modest two rooms in a brownstone at 152 East Superior Street. The gallery officially opened later that fall, with an exhibition of new paintings by Nicholas Carone, who was that year in Rome on a Fulbright scholarship. This was followed by an exhibition of Matta’s Rome paintings, then Burri’s first exhibition in the states. While the early program reflected the times in its mix of abstraction, surrealism and ‘object d’art’ it was only a matter of time that a focus emerged. Frumkin initially showed a broad range of artists, Europeans, ex-pats, from New York, Chicago, California, but it was always the personal relationships that drove the program. An key early artist was the painter Robert Barnes - who got his start working as an art handler for the gallery. It was Matta, however, who was arguably the important relationship: though Frumkin did arrange several exhibitions of his work over the years, the introductions Matta made shaped the gallery’s trajectory, notably by connecting Frumkin to a young Peter Saul in 1960. By that point the gallery had outgrown its humble beginnings, moving to a larger space on North Michigan and opening a second gallery in New York. A program had also begun to take shape, with its focus on figurative painting and sculpture and a keen interest in artists not considered to be in the “mainstream.” Forays to California (resulting in exhibitions of Jeremy Anderson and Richard Diebenkorn) lead to Roy De Forest, Robert Hudson and eventually a whole generation of artists from the Bay Area. Similarly, relationships with Barnes and later James McGarrell established a figurative tradition with strong Chicago roots that eventually grew to include Philip Pearlstein, Jack Beal, Alfred Leslie and others. The rest, as one would say, is history.
Allan Frumkin in his gallery at 152 East Superior Street, Chicago, c. 1952.
Image courtesy the Allan Frumkin Gallery records, 1880, 1944-2016. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
In the winter of 1951, a young, aspiring art dealer traveled to Europe. With an eye to opening a gallery in his home city of Chicago, he familiarized himself with a generation of surrealist painters and sculptors, meeting an international cohort of artists in Paris, Rome and beyond. A key introduction turned out to be the surrealist painter Roberto Matta, who in turn directed the young Allan Frumkin to Joseph Cornell and others; Henry Moore suggested the sculptures of Germaine Richier, establishing a rule for Frumkin that, “if a serious artist tells you to go and look at somebody, you should go and look.” These artists, in tandem with Frumkin’s own interest in European prints and drawings, would be the foundation of the gallery’s early years.
In a letter to Alberto Burri (whom Allan had met in Rome that first trip), from the summer of 1952, Frumkin apologized for his lack of communication: he was busy setting up his new space - a modest two rooms in a brownstone at 152 East Superior Street. The gallery officially opened later that fall, with an exhibition of new paintings by Nicholas Carone, who was that year in Rome on a Fulbright scholarship. This was followed by an exhibition of Matta’s Rome paintings, then Burri’s first exhibition in the states. While the early program reflected the times in its mix of abstraction, surrealism and ‘object d’art’ it was only a matter of time that a focus emerged. Frumkin initially showed a broad range of artists, Europeans, ex-pats, from New York, Chicago, California, but it was always the personal relationships that drove the program. An key early artist was the painter Robert Barnes - who got his start working as an art handler for the gallery. It was Matta, however, who was arguably the important relationship: though Frumkin did arrange several exhibitions of his work over the years, the introductions Matta made shaped the gallery’s trajectory, notably by connecting Frumkin to a young Peter Saul in 1960. By that point the gallery had outgrown its humble beginnings, moving to a larger space on North Michigan and opening a second gallery in New York. A program had also begun to take shape, with its focus on figurative painting and sculpture and a keen interest in artists not considered to be in the “mainstream.” Forays to California (resulting in exhibitions of Jeremy Anderson and Richard Diebenkorn) lead to Roy De Forest, Robert Hudson and eventually a whole generation of artists from the Bay Area. Similarly, relationships with Barnes and later James McGarrell established a figurative tradition with strong Chicago roots that eventually grew to include Philip Pearlstein, Jack Beal, Alfred Leslie and others. The rest, as one would say, is history.