Outnumbered by those of Chelsea, the galleries of Gramercy Park tend to be overshadowed by them as well. And that is a shame, as the Gramercy area has plenty to offer. From a multinational museum dedicated to contemporary photography to a gallery specializing in artists of Indian heritage, you will find a surprising breadth of artworks here.
Art Haz
310 East 23rd Street (between First and Second Avenues)
The remit of Art Haz is a broad one: It sells paintings, prints, drawings, and sculptures from the 16th to 20th centuries. “The Fight Between Carnival and Lent,” an oil painting attributed to Pieter Bruegel; signed prints by Paul Gauguin, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso; Albrecht Dürer engravings; and “Abraham and Melchizedek” a pencil drawing attributed to Peter Paul Rubens, were among recent works available.
281 Park Avenue South (at East 22nd Street)
Credit: Jimmy Nelson
Based in Stockholm with a second outpost in Tallinn, Estonia, photography museum Fotografiska recently opened its third gallery on Park Avenue South, in a Medieval-inspired landmarked building that is worth a visit in and of itself. Rather than owning and displaying a permanent collection, Fotografiska continually curates themed exhibitions, several of which appear at any one time. On display through March 1 is “Testaments” by Israeli photographer Adi Nes. Anastasia Taylor-Lind’s documentation of New York women dealing with issues related to childcare, commissioned by Fotographiska and “Time” magazine, appears through March 8. Tawny Chatmon’s “Inheritance,” spotlighting African American children, will be exhibited through March 22; a 30-year retrospective of fashion photographer Ellen von Unwerth’s depictions of women runs through March 29; and landscape lenser Helene Schmitz’s “Thinking Like a Mountain” is on display through April 12.
Gordon Robichaux
41 Union Square West (at East 17th Street), #925
Artists Sam Gordon and Jacob Robichaux founded this “curatorial agency” to promote emerging and underappreciated artists as well as to view established artists in a new light. Recent exhibitions included “Garden,” a site-specific installation by Elisabeth Kley and Tabboo!, and a retrospective of multimedia collages by Frederick Weston.
The Mishkin Gallery
135 East 22nd Street (between Third and Lexington Avenues)
Part of Baruch College but open to all, the Mishkin Gallery is dedicated to 20th- and 21st-century art, hosting five exhibitions each year. On display through February 21 is “The Brotherhood of New Blockheads,” photographs and artifacts from Russia’s New Blockheads performance-art collective.
The National Arts Club
15 Gramercy Park South (between Irving Place and Park Avenue South)
The west parlor of the National Arts Club. Image: National Arts Club/Wikimedia
The National Arts Club really is a club for participants in the arts; members have included William Merritt Chase, Larry Rivers, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Alfred Stieglitz, Mark Twain, and Stanford White. You need not be a member, however, to visit the club—housed in a landmarked townhouse that was once the home of former New York governor Samuel Tilden—and admire its extensive permanent collection, which includes works by the cream of American fine art. The club hosts numerous temporary exhibits as well, which are also open to the public.
Susan Sheehan Gallery
136 East 16th Street (between Third Avenue and Irving Place)
Color studies by Josef Albers are among the prints frequently available at Susan Sheehan Gallery. Image: FriedaWie/Wikicommons
Fine-art prints from the latter half of the 20th century and the 21st century are the specialty of Susan Sheehan Gallery, with works by luminaries such as Josef Albers, Lucian Freud, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Edward Ruscha, and Andy Warhol among those generally available and on display.
Talwar Gallery
108 East 16th Street (between Irving Place and Union Square East), #301
Deepak Talwar opened his eponymous New York gallery in 2001 to introduce contemporary Indian artists—those living in Asia as well as in other parts of the world—to a wider audience; six years later he launched a second gallery, in New Delhi. Among the artists the gallery represents are Wales-born multimedia artist Alia Syed, India-born and -based sculptor N.N. Rimzon, and Uganda-born photographer Zarina Bhimji, a former Turner Prize nominee whose works appear in London’s Tate and Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
Gramercy Art of the Matter