Midtown is a trove of art treasures. It is home to the Museum of Modern Art, of course, as well as dozens of galleries representing contemporary artists. What’s more, a number of galleries specialize in niches as disparate as Soviet photography and Japanese woodblock prints. If you want your gallery-hopping to encompass works from multiple centuries and continents, below are a few stops you might want to make.
Wigmore Fine Art
152 West 57th Street (between Sixth and Seventh Avenues), Third Floor
“A Ranch on the Plains” by Peter Hurd. Image: Sharon Mollerus/Wikimedia
American art of the 20th century, from the Hudson River School to the Washington Color School, is the specialty here. As well as being the exclusive agent for the estates of George Biddle, Doris Lee, and Esphyr Slobodkina (who is perhaps best known for the classic children’s book “Caps for Sale”), among others, at any given time D. Wigmore has works by numerous other artists on display and available for sale. Through February 14 it is exhibiting “Engaging the Far West: Adolf Dehn’s Colorado and Peter Hurd’s New Mexico” featuring 25 landscapes.
Edwynn Houk Gallery
745 Fifth Avenue (between East 57th and 58th Streets), Fourth Floor
Brassaï, Man Ray, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Weston are among the innovative photographers of the early 20th century whose works can be seen at Edwynn Houk Gallery. In addition to focusing on leading Modernist photographers, the gallery also represents contemporary photographers including Sally Mann, Vik Muniz, and Herb Ritts.
Galerie St. Etienne
24 West 57th Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues)
“The Baby” by Gustav Klimt. Image: Daderot (public domain)/Wikimedia
Promoting Austrian and German Expressionism since 1939, Galerie St. Etienne held the first American solo shows of Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele, among other masters of the genre. Works by these three artists are included in “The Expressionist Legacy,” running through February 29. The gallery’s other area of expertise is outsider art, or works by self-taught artists. In fact, not only does it claim to have discovered Grandma Moses, perhaps the best-known outsider artists, but it also represents her estate.
Howard Greenberg Gallery
41 East 57th Street (between Park and Madison Avenues), Suite 1406
“Blossom Restaurant, 103 Bowery, October 3, 1935” by Berenice Abbott. Image: public domain/Wikimedia
While it has displayed works by just about every notable figure in the history of photography, Howard Greenberg Gallery has an especially solid collection of photojournalism and street photography by Berenice Abbott, Margaret Bourke-White, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange, Mary Ellen Mark, and Gordon Parks, to name just a few. Two exhibitions are on display through January 18. “Jessica Lange: Highway 61” is a series of black-and-white photos shots by the actress along the titular highway; “Selections from Collections” is an eclectic assortment of decades-spanning works by Walker Evans, Irving Penn, and Bruno V. Roels, among others.
J.N. Bartfield Galleries
60 West 55th Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues), Fifth Floor
“The Broncho Buster” by Frederic Remington. Image: public domain/Wikimedia
Art celebrating the American West is the specialty of J.N. Bartfield Galleries, with depictions of wildlife and outdoor life also well represented. At any given time you can view and purchase bronze sculptures of cavalry by Frederic Remington, watercolors of Native Americans by Olaf Seltzer, wood carvings of birds by Bill Rice, and paintings of lions in their natural habitats by Wilhelm Kuhnert, among other works.
Nailya Alexander Gallery
41 East 57th Street (between Park and Madison Avenues), Suite 704
Russian and Soviet photography from the first half of the 20th century is the forte here, featuring artists such as Soviet-Ukrainian photojournalist Max Alpert and Bolshoi Ballet chronicler Georgy Petrusov. In addition, the gallery represents and displays fine-art photographers from other parts of the world. One of those photographers, East Berlin-born Ingar Krauss, will be the subject of a solo show from January 22 through March 4.
Rehs Galleries
Five East 57th Street (between Madison and Fifth Avenues), Eighth Floor
Rehs Galleries represents a veritable A (Louise Abbéma, George Armfield) to Z (Felix Ziem, Fritz Zuber-Buhler) of artist estates from the 19th and early 20th centuries. A riverscape by Eugène Boudin, a still life by Oliver Clare, and a mythological painting by Louis-Joseph Courtat were among recent acquisitions. Those whose tastes encompass art of the late 20th and the 21st centuries can proceed next door to Rehs Contemporary. Many of the artists represented at Rehs Contemporary, such as Mark Daly, Hiroshi Furuyoshi, and Erik Koeppel, display a clear affinity for the styles of art seen at Rehs Galleries.
Scholten Japanese Art
145 West 58th Street (between Sixth and Seventh Avenues), Suite 6D
“Lemon No. 96” by Yoshisuke Funasaka. Image: Scholten Japanese Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the Peabody Essex Museum are among the institutions that have acquired pieces from Scholten Japanese Art. Along with classical and contemporary paintings, drawings, and woodblock prints by Japanese artists, the gallery features works by Western artists influenced by Japanese printing techniques. Recent acquisitions included new prints of felines by Scottish artist Paul Binnie, a 19th-century triptych by Utagawa Kunisada, and several 1960s woodprints by Yoshisuke Funasaka that expand on the traditional use of the medium.
Specialized Galleries in Midtown