Pat Hearn Gallery Archive.
Scarce Printed Matter
Hearn, Patricia. Pat Hearn Gallery Collection. 1983-2001.
The Pat Hearn Gallery Collection presents the history of the Pat Hearn Gallery through the ephemera it produced for its exhibitions, including press releases, calendars, posters, announcement cards, invitations, postcards, and more, all reflecting the many artists associated with the gallery and the novel events and sessions that were held there.
Pat Hearn was one of the leading art dealers in New York, a founder of the Gramercy International Art Fair and a pioneer of the art scene in the East Village, SoHo and Chelsea. Her gallery was in some ways a continually evolving artwork in which everything, from the 1950’s-ish cursive letterhead to the furniture and design of her different spaces, expressed a distinct personality and sensibility. Yet none of this competed with the art on view, which reflected an eclectic mix of artistic generations and media – painting, Conceptual Art and video art – and a viewpoint that evolved from somewhat kitschy neopop to neo-geo to an ecumenical feminism.
In her 17 years as a dealer, Ms. Hearn was widely respected as unusually empathetic to artists, open to new art and willing to share artists and ideas with other dealers. When her cancer was first diagnosed and it seemed that her insurance company would not cover her treatment (although it eventually paid for some of it), her friends organized a benefit to which hundreds of artists and dealers donated work and money.
The artists to whom Ms. Hearn gave first shows, or first New York shows, included the painters Philip Taffee, Milan Kunc, Peter Schuyff, Jutta Koether, Monique Prieto and Jeff Elrod, and the Conceptualists Susan Hiller, Renee Green, Lincoln Tobier and Simon Leung. She showed artists she knew from her school days in Boston, including the painter George Condo ,the installation artist Jack Pierson and the photographer Mark Morrisroe, and fostered the careers of such older artists as the painter Mary Heilmann, the video artist Joan Jonas and the Conceptualist Lutz Bacher. She was especially proud that she was able to mount posthumous shows of the work of Eva Hesse and Ana Mendieta.
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