Barbara Mathes Gallery

Barbara Mathes Gallery
Name	Barbara Mathes Gallery
Established	1998
Location	New York City
Director	Barbara Mathes
Type	Art gallery

Barbara Mathes Gallery Barbara Mathes Gallery is a contemporary and modern art gallery founded in 1998 in New York City that specializes in twentieth- and twenty-first-century painting, sculpture, and works on paper. The gallery has mounted exhibitions featuring American and European artists and has participated in international art fairs and collaborations with museums, curators, and collectors. It maintains relationships with institutions, private collections, and foundations while publishing exhibition catalogues and scholarly essays.

History

The gallery was established in 1998 amid a New York City art scene that included Chelsea, Manhattan, SoHo, Manhattan, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, and institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and the Tate Modern. Early programming referenced legacies associated with figures like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, and Barnett Newman while engaging contemporary dialogues linked to Gerhard Richter, Cecily Brown, Brice Marden, Anselm Kiefer, and Richard Serra. Over time the gallery developed ties with private foundations such as the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Graham Foundation, and the Getty Foundation, and collaborated with universities including Columbia University, New York University, and Yale University.

Location and Facilities

Located in a neighborhood associated with dealer spaces and nonprofit organizations like David Zwirner, Gagosian Gallery, Pace Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, and Gladstone Gallery, the gallery occupies a multi-room space designed for temporary exhibitions, installations, and publications. Its facilities accommodate large-scale works in dialogue with conservation standards practiced by institutions such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The space supports curatorial partnerships with museums like the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the New Museum, and technical collaborations involving art handlers from firms associated with Sotheby's, Christie's, and Phillips.

Exhibitions and Programming

Exhibition programming has included solo presentations, thematic group shows, and retrospective surveys that reference curatorial practices from institutions such as the Hammer Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Hamburger Bahnhof, and the Centre Pompidou. The gallery has presented projects that converse with the oeuvres of artists connected to movements represented by the School of Paris, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, Pop Art, and Conceptual Art, and has hosted talks and panels featuring curators and critics from publications like Artforum, Art in America, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Hyperallergic. It has participated in art fairs including Art Basel, Frieze Art Fair, TEFAF, The Armory Show, and Art Expo.

Collections and Specializations

Barbara Mathes Gallery specializes in modern and contemporary works on paper, paintings, and sculptures, balancing historical works by artists akin to Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Alexandre Calder, and Joan Miró with contemporary practices by practitioners analogous to Kiki Smith, Kehinde Wiley, Maya Lin, Jeff Koons, and Yayoi Kusama. The gallery works with private collectors, corporate collections like those of Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, and Facebook (Meta Platforms) as well as public institutions that include the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Artists Represented

The roster has included established and mid-career artists whose practices span painting, sculpture, works on paper, and installation; programming has placed artists in conversation with historical figures such as Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, and Diane Arbus. The gallery has shown work by artists connected to galleries and estates like Leo Castelli, Paul Kasmin, André Emmerich, Berry Campbell Gallery, and Matthew Marks Gallery, and engaged with living artists who exhibit in museums such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Critical Reception and Influence

Critical response in outlets including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and ArtReview has framed the gallery's exhibitions within broader dialogues connecting collectors, curators, and institutions such as the National Endowment for the Arts, the Monuments Men and Women Museum Network, and the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies. Reviews have compared the gallery's contributions to those of peers in districts represented by Chelsea, Manhattan dealers and international counterparts operating in London, Paris, Zurich, and Berlin.

Publications and Catalogues

The gallery issues exhibition catalogues and essays produced in collaboration with curators, historians, and writers affiliated with academic presses and museums including Yale University Press, Princeton University Press, Rizzoli, Thames & Hudson, and D.A.P. (Distributed Art Publishers). Catalogues often feature scholarship referencing archival collections such as those at the Getty Research Institute, the Archives of American Art, and university special collections at Harvard University, Princeton University, and University of California, Berkeley.

Category:Art galleries in New York City