Harriet and Sidney Janis does not have an image.
Harriet and Sidney Janis
American, (1896–1989)
Sidney Janis, the doyen of New York art dealers, whose gallery on West 57th Street mounted significant shows of European masters and helped put Abstract Expressionism on the international map, died yesterday after a bout with pneumonia. He was 93 years old and was active in the Sidney Janis Gallery until his 90th birthday. In 1967 Mr. Janis gave his private collection, comprising 103 works by major European and American artists, to the Museum of Modern Art. Among them were important paintings by Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee and Umberto Boccioni. At the time the gift was valued at $2 million; today it would be worth more than $100 million.
Mr. Janis, a onetime professional dancer on the vaudeville circuit and later a shirt manufacturer, began his long involvement with art as a collector. Visiting Europe in the late 1920's and early 30's, he bought major works by School of Paris painters and acquired a small Mondrian canvas directly from the artist. It was the second Mondrian work to be brought to the United States. The impressive collection he assembled with his wife, Harriet, had several museum shows, and Mr. Janis himself became an exhibition organizer and a writer on art. In 1948, at the age of 52, he opened his first gallery and during its early years mounted museum-quality shows of 20th-century masters and movements. Among them were the first American presentations of Jean Arp, Robert Delaunay and Joaquin Torres-Garcia, and - in 1951 - the first comprehensive exhibition of Henri Rousseau. In 1953 Marcel Duchamp produced a Dada show at the gallery, and there were also comprehensive shows of Futurism and Cubism. Although Mr. Janis was not the first to show the Abstract Expressionist artists, he became involved with them early. In 1950 he mounted a group show that included the work of Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, and during that decade became the dealer for Pollock, Gorky, de Kooning, Rothko, Philip Guston, Kline and Robert Motherwell.
In 1961 he presented ''The New Realists,'' one of the first dealer shows of Pop Art. The show brought younger Pop artists into the Janis stable, among them Claes Oldenburg, George Segal, Jim Dine and Tom Wesselmann. The dealer himself acknowledged that his vocation lay not so much in discovering new talents as in promoting those with established reputations, but he did that so well that his gallery became a major pace-setter for the art world in the 1950's and 60's. During that period he was described by Alfred H. Barr Jr., founding director of the Museum of Modern Art, as ''the most brilliant new dealer, in terms of business acumen, to have appeared in New York since the war.''
Mr. Janis was born in Buffalo on July 8, 1896, and attended schools there. In his teens he did professional ballroom dancing on the Gus Sun Time vaudeville circuit. He kept up his interest in dancing throughout his life, and the small, dapper Mr. Janis was a familiar figure at Roseland. At a 90th birthday party given by the Museum of Modern Art in 1986, he whirled a woman partner around the floor in a brisk tango.
After a tour as a machinist in the Navy during World War I, Mr. Janis went to work for his brother Martin, who owned a chain of shoe stores. On business trips to New York, he began going to art galleries - ''a nice diversion that you could enjoy in the daytime,'' he once told an interviewer. In 1924, he married Harriet (Hansi) Grossman, and the couple moved to New York. With the help of his wife, Mr. Janis opened a shirt manufacturing business called M'Lord. Its sole product was a shirt with two breast pockets that sold well in the South, where men doffed jackets. The shirt was a great success and Mr. Janis was soon able to devote most of his time to his growing passion for collecting art.
A painting he acquired in 1934, ''The Dream'' by Rousseau, aroused his interest in folk art, and during the 1930's he traveled throughout the country in search of unknown primitive painters. Among those he found and gave shows to were Patrick J. Sullivan, a West Virginia steelworker, and Morris Hirshfield, a retired Brooklyn slipper manufacturer who tended to paint women with two left feet. In 1942 he published ''They Taught Themselves: American Primitive Painters of the 20th Century,'' which contained critical and biographical studies of 30 self-taught American painters from Joseph Pickett to Horace Pippin.
During the 1940's Mr. Janis came to know many of the European artists in exile in the United States, among them Fernand Leger, Max Ernst, Mondrian and Roberto Matta. Becoming more interested in Surrealism, he was editorial adviser for a prominent Surrealist review and in 1942 helped organize an international Surrealist show called ''First Papers of Surrealism.'' His books include ''Abstract and Surrealist Art in America'' (1944) and ''Picasso: The Recent Years, 1939-1946,'' both done in collaboration with his wife.
In 1948, short of money after a decade of retirement, Mr. Janis re-entered the business world. ''This time,'' he told an interviewer, ''I decided to do something I loved.'' He opened his art gallery, with a show of work by Leger. As a dealer, he was at times an embattled figure. He was occasionally sued by artists he represented and accused by fellow dealers of talent raids. Critics also said he told his artists what to paint. But Mr. Janis continued to enjoy a reputation as a trend-spotter and a taste-maker, and in the 1960's he played an important role in the growth of Pop Art, showing such artists as George Segal, Tom Wesselmann and Marisol. An active tennis player until his late 80's, Mr. Janis retired from the gallery in 1986, and it is today run by his sons, Carroll and Conrad (the actor and jazz musician), and Carroll's son David.
Harriet Janis died in 1963.
Source: The New York Times
American, (1896–1989)
Sidney Janis, the doyen of New York art dealers, whose gallery on West 57th Street mounted significant shows of European masters and helped put Abstract Expressionism on the international map, died yesterday after a bout with pneumonia. He was 93 years old and was active in the Sidney Janis Gallery until his 90th birthday. In 1967 Mr. Janis gave his private collection, comprising 103 works by major European and American artists, to the Museum of Modern Art. Among them were important paintings by Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee and Umberto Boccioni. At the time the gift was valued at $2 million; today it would be worth more than $100 million.
Mr. Janis, a onetime professional dancer on the vaudeville circuit and later a shirt manufacturer, began his long involvement with art as a collector. Visiting Europe in the late 1920's and early 30's, he bought major works by School of Paris painters and acquired a small Mondrian canvas directly from the artist. It was the second Mondrian work to be brought to the United States. The impressive collection he assembled with his wife, Harriet, had several museum shows, and Mr. Janis himself became an exhibition organizer and a writer on art. In 1948, at the age of 52, he opened his first gallery and during its early years mounted museum-quality shows of 20th-century masters and movements. Among them were the first American presentations of Jean Arp, Robert Delaunay and Joaquin Torres-Garcia, and - in 1951 - the first comprehensive exhibition of Henri Rousseau. In 1953 Marcel Duchamp produced a Dada show at the gallery, and there were also comprehensive shows of Futurism and Cubism. Although Mr. Janis was not the first to show the Abstract Expressionist artists, he became involved with them early. In 1950 he mounted a group show that included the work of Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, and during that decade became the dealer for Pollock, Gorky, de Kooning, Rothko, Philip Guston, Kline and Robert Motherwell.
In 1961 he presented ''The New Realists,'' one of the first dealer shows of Pop Art. The show brought younger Pop artists into the Janis stable, among them Claes Oldenburg, George Segal, Jim Dine and Tom Wesselmann. The dealer himself acknowledged that his vocation lay not so much in discovering new talents as in promoting those with established reputations, but he did that so well that his gallery became a major pace-setter for the art world in the 1950's and 60's. During that period he was described by Alfred H. Barr Jr., founding director of the Museum of Modern Art, as ''the most brilliant new dealer, in terms of business acumen, to have appeared in New York since the war.''
Mr. Janis was born in Buffalo on July 8, 1896, and attended schools there. In his teens he did professional ballroom dancing on the Gus Sun Time vaudeville circuit. He kept up his interest in dancing throughout his life, and the small, dapper Mr. Janis was a familiar figure at Roseland. At a 90th birthday party given by the Museum of Modern Art in 1986, he whirled a woman partner around the floor in a brisk tango.
After a tour as a machinist in the Navy during World War I, Mr. Janis went to work for his brother Martin, who owned a chain of shoe stores. On business trips to New York, he began going to art galleries - ''a nice diversion that you could enjoy in the daytime,'' he once told an interviewer. In 1924, he married Harriet (Hansi) Grossman, and the couple moved to New York. With the help of his wife, Mr. Janis opened a shirt manufacturing business called M'Lord. Its sole product was a shirt with two breast pockets that sold well in the South, where men doffed jackets. The shirt was a great success and Mr. Janis was soon able to devote most of his time to his growing passion for collecting art.
A painting he acquired in 1934, ''The Dream'' by Rousseau, aroused his interest in folk art, and during the 1930's he traveled throughout the country in search of unknown primitive painters. Among those he found and gave shows to were Patrick J. Sullivan, a West Virginia steelworker, and Morris Hirshfield, a retired Brooklyn slipper manufacturer who tended to paint women with two left feet. In 1942 he published ''They Taught Themselves: American Primitive Painters of the 20th Century,'' which contained critical and biographical studies of 30 self-taught American painters from Joseph Pickett to Horace Pippin.
During the 1940's Mr. Janis came to know many of the European artists in exile in the United States, among them Fernand Leger, Max Ernst, Mondrian and Roberto Matta. Becoming more interested in Surrealism, he was editorial adviser for a prominent Surrealist review and in 1942 helped organize an international Surrealist show called ''First Papers of Surrealism.'' His books include ''Abstract and Surrealist Art in America'' (1944) and ''Picasso: The Recent Years, 1939-1946,'' both done in collaboration with his wife.
In 1948, short of money after a decade of retirement, Mr. Janis re-entered the business world. ''This time,'' he told an interviewer, ''I decided to do something I loved.'' He opened his art gallery, with a show of work by Leger. As a dealer, he was at times an embattled figure. He was occasionally sued by artists he represented and accused by fellow dealers of talent raids. Critics also said he told his artists what to paint. But Mr. Janis continued to enjoy a reputation as a trend-spotter and a taste-maker, and in the 1960's he played an important role in the growth of Pop Art, showing such artists as George Segal, Tom Wesselmann and Marisol. An active tennis player until his late 80's, Mr. Janis retired from the gallery in 1986, and it is today run by his sons, Carroll and Conrad (the actor and jazz musician), and Carroll's son David.
Harriet Janis died in 1963.
Source: The New York Times
Artist Objects
