Anita Shapolsky Gallery


The Anita Shapolsky Gallery is an art gallery that was founded in 1982. It is located at 152 East 65th Street, on Manhattan's Upper East Side, in New York City.
The gallery specializes in 1950s and 1960s abstract expressionist art, known as the New York School. It exhibits expressionism, geometric abstraction and painterly abstraction. The gallery most frequently exhibits works in oil and acrylic, as well as sculpture. It focuses on second-generation abstract expressionists, while also representing younger artists, older Latin American abstract artists, women artists, African-American artists and established artists.

History

Anita Shapolsky was born in New York as Anita Kresofsky. She attended Hunter College, where she earned a B.A. and where her interest in art began, and New York University, where she earned an M.A.
She married Martin Shapolsky, a realtor. They had a son, Ian, and a daughter, Lisa, together. Martin died in 1982.
Shapolsky performed social work, and served as a reading teacher. She was elected as chapter chairperson of the United Federation of Teachers.
She began collecting ancient art, and in the 1970s started to collect contemporary art, focusing on abstract expressionism. Anita Shapolsky opened the gallery in 1982 on the second floor of 99 Spring Street in SoHo, in Manhattan. It was originally known as the Arbitrage Gallery, or alternatively, the Arbitrage Art Gallery. At the time, it housed a collection of American abstract art from the 1950s.
In 1984, the founder changed the name to the eponymous Anita Shapolsky Gallery, and moved to the larger first floor and lower level at 99 Spring Street. By 1989, she also displayed "Latin American Artist" and "Women Artist" exhibitions were also displayed.
In 1997, the Anita Shapolsky Gallery moved to two floors in a brownstone townhouse at 152 East 65th Street in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Art critic Peter Plagens described it in The Wall Street Journal in 2012, saying:
With its brick walls, several well-chosen pieces of classically modern furniture, an in-wall wine rack, her space is a refreshing change from the cold, laboratorylike chambers in Chelsea.

Art and artists

The gallery specializes in 1950s and 1960s abstract expressionism, known as the New York School, and exhibits expressionism, geometric abstraction, and painterly abstraction. It most frequently exhibits works in oil and acrylic, as well as sculpture. The gallery focuses on second-generation abstract expressionists, while also representing younger artists, older Latin American abstract artists, women artists, African-American artists, and established artists.
In the spring and summer of 2014 the gallery exhibited "Symbolic Abstraction" by Karl Hagedorn. The gallery has also exhibited artists including painters Edward Avedisian, Bascove, Cecile Gray Bazelon, Mario Bencomo, Seymour Boardman, Ilya Bolotowsky, Ernest Briggs, James Brooks, Lawrence Calcagno, Nicolas Carone, Pérez Celis, Ching Ho Cheng, Emilio Cruz, Nassos Daphnis, Nanno de Groot, Beauford Delaney, Lynne Mapp Drexler, Edward Dugmore, Friedel Dzubas, Amaranth Ehrenhalt, Perle Fine, John Hultberg, Albert Kotin, Michael Loew, Clarence Major, Stephen Pace, Misha Reznikoff, William Scharf, Ethel Schwabacher, Kendall Shaw, Thomas Sills, Merton Simpson, Jack Stewart, and Yvonne Thomas. The gallery has, in addition, exhibited writer/painters William Saroyan and Derek Walcott, sculptors Peter Agostini, Haydn Llewellyn Davies, Ibram Lassaw, Clement Meadmore, Louise Nevelson, Linda Stein, and Wilfrid Zogbaum, and painter/sculptors Karel Appel, Fernando de Szyszlo, Claire Falkenstein, Betty Parsons, and Antoni Tàpies.

Anita Shapolsky Art Foundation

In 1998, the gallery set up the Anita Shapolsky Art Foundation in a, 1859 former Presbyterian church in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, a two-hour drive from New York City. There, through the non-profit 5013 organization, during the summer Anita Shapolsky provides educational programs for children, and exhibits abstract artists and contemporary artworks.