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38 Walker Street
New York, NY 10013
212 564 8480


The George Adams Gallery traces its origins to the Allan Frumkin Gallery, founded in Chicago in 1952 with a New York location opening in 1959. George Adams’ association with the New York gallery began in 1980, with Mr. Adams and Mr. Frumkin forming a partnership, Frumkin/Adams Gallery, in 1988. Upon Mr. Frumkin’s retirement in 1995, the gallery assumed its present identity of George Adams Gallery. 


From its inception, the gallery has introduced and promoted a diverse range of artists, most notably from the San Francisco Bay Area and Latin America, while mounting regular exhibitions of 20th Century European master drawings by such artists as Max Beckmann, Lovis Corinth, James Ensor, Alberto Giacometti, and Henri Matisse, among others. The rich history of the gallery includes the careers of artists such as Jeremy Anderson, Robert Barnes, William Beckman, Mel Chin, Joseph Cornell, Manny Farber, Paul Georges, Paul Granlund, Theodore Halkin, Robert Hudson, June Leaf, Arthur Liepzig, Maryan, James McGarrell, Willard Midgette, Philip Pearlstein, James Surls, James Valerio, and Sandy Winters. Beginning with Roberto Matta in the 1950s, the gallery played an important role in introducing contemporary Latin American art to American audiences. Subsequently the gallery gave first solo exhibitions in the United States for artists Luis Cruz Azaceta (1979), Jose Bedia (1991), Rosana Palzyan (1998), and Yoan Capote (2004), as well as exhibitions of works by Carlos Alfonzo, Luis Benedit, Juan Francisco Elso, and Arnaldo Roche-Rabell. 


Today, the George Adams Gallery represents the estates of Robert Arneson (1930-1992), Jack Beal (1931-2013), Elmer Bischoff (1916-1991), Joan Brown (1938-1990), Roy De Forest (1930-2007), and Gregory Gillespie (1936-2000), while regularly exhibiting the work of contemporary artists such as Luis Cruz Azaceta, Enrique Chagoya, Diane Edison, Amer Kobaslija, Andrew Lenaghan, Peter Saul and William T. Wiley, and other emerging and under-recognized artists. Having a long association with art from the San Francisco Bay Area, the gallery’s program continues to champion art from the region through research and historical exhibitions of work by artists both from its roster and others.

Artists Represented:
Estate of Robert Arneson
Luis Cruz Azaceta
Chris Ballantyne
Estate of Jack Beal
Estate of Elmer Bischoff
Estate of Joan Brown
Enrique Chagoya
Diane Edison
Roy De Forest
Estate of Gregory Gillespie
Amer Kobaslija
Andrew Lenaghan
Tony May
Katherine Sherwood


Works Available By:
Jeremy Anderson
Jose Bedia
Alfred Leslie
Ron Nagle
Gladys Nilsson
Manuel Neri
George Ohr
Ed Paschke
Peter Saul
Richard Shaw
H.C. Westermann
William T. Wiley
Karl Wirsum

 

 
Gallery exterior, 38 Walker Street. Courtesy of George Adams Gallery.


 
Online Programming

Essays & Interviews



‘Essay & Interviews’ comprises multiple video series’, artist interviews, reminiscences, highlights from our archives, and more. Initially produced remotely during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, this platform now hosts a variety of material relating to the programming of the gallery’s physical space and beyond. Read more on our website, at the link below: https://www.georgeadamsgallery.com/essays-interviews

 
Current Exhibitions

Tom Burckhardt

Ulterior Motif



February 23, 2024 - April 6, 2024

Tom Burckhardt

Ulterior Motif



February 23, 2024 - April 6, 2024
The George Adams Gallery is pleased to present 'Ulterior Motif', an exhibition of new abstract paintings by Tom Burckhardt, on view from February 23 through April 6. 'Ulterior Motif' is Burckhardt’s first solo exhibition at George Adams. The gallery will host an opening reception with the artist on Friday, February 23 from 6 - 8 PM. Tom Burckhardt's work explores the intersection of abstraction and figuration. Through the skillful use of a diverse range of marks, Burckhardt encourages the viewer to discern distinct forms and figures within his layered abstractions. This play of perception, where seemingly random patterns give rise to recognizable images, is known as pareidolia—a concept Burckhardt has been consistently engaging with in his work. In his latest series, there is a noticeable shift in both scale and composition when compared to his previous paintings, stemming from a combination of intentional and unintentional circumstances. Deliberately, Burckhardt opted to work on a larger scale, aiming to construct a "society" of relational elements within his abstractions, as opposed to the individualized “portraits” of his previous work. As for the unintentional, Burckhardt’s mother, the artist Yvonne Jacquette suddenly passed away at the age of 88 in April, significantly influencing Burckhardt’s development in this series. The works in 'Ulterior Motif' incorporate pigments sourced from pre-mixed tubes Burckhardt found in Jacquette’s studio, and the canvases are remnant rolls of linen she had left behind. Inspired by Jacquette's method, Burckhardt for the first time tacked linen onto his studio walls instead of stretching the canvases in advance. This departure proved productive for Burckhardt, as it eliminated the constraints of cost and deliberation, ultimately resulting in fresh and un-busied compositions. While Burckhardt’s compositions at first appear entirely abstract, many representational elements begin to emerge upon closer inspection. For example an “ear” in the top right of 'A Pointed' (2023), or the “reclining nude” of 'Peeping Tomorrow' (2023), offer clear visual cues for viewers, though Burckhardt’s style resists overt figural identification. While Burckhardt acknowledges the “figures” in his works may appear as fractured, he prefers the adjective “congealed” – as an image coming together rather than breaking apart (an attitude Burckhardt attests to his own optimism). Perceiving the compositions becomes a visual game – discovering the painted pathways combine into something familiar, yet experiencing the overall abstraction simultaneously. Tom Burckhardt was born in New York City in 1964. He attended SUNY Purchase and graduated with a BFA in painting in 1986, after which he attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. His work has been the subject of over thirty solo exhibitions at institutions including the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, TX; the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, NY; and the Knoxville Art Museum in Knoxville, TN. Burckhardt was a participant of the 2016 Kochi-Muziris Biennale in Kerala, India and an artist in residence at the Yaddo Foundation in New York State in 2019 and Pepper House, Kochi, India in 2020. He has received numerous grants and awards, including three grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, a Guggenheim Foundation Grant, two Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants, and the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy. He currently teaches part-time at SUNY Purchase.

 
Past Exhibitions

Robert Arneson, Joan Brown, Roy De Forest, Viola Frey, M. Louise Stanley, and William T. Wiley

Going Our Way



January 5, 2024 - February 17, 2024
The George Adams Gallery is pleased to present Going Our Way, a group exhibition of paintings, drawings, and sculptures by Robert Arneson, Joan Brown, Roy De Forest, Viola Frey, M. Louise Stanley, and William T. Wiley. Known for its enduring commitment to art from the San Francisco Bay Area, the exhibition maintains the gallery’s tradition of championing the region’s artistic heritage. The artists included are connected through the unique influence of the Bay Area on their work, and the title reflects each artist's response to prevailing trends over a span of three decades. While they worked in different styles and across media, the six artists are united in their rejection of the impersonal, “objective” attitude that informed the dominant West Coast trends of Formalism, Photorealism and New Abstraction. Instead, each in their own way celebrates an intimate, subjective, and idiosyncratic autobiographical expression – an approach that the exhibition traces from their earliest work in the 1960s and continues through the 1970s and 1980s. The artists included in the exhibition all lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area. Arneson, Brown and Frey were born in California, while De Forest, Stanley and Wiley all moved to the Bay Area to study art. Brown, De Forest and Wiley attended the San Francisco Art Institute (then the California School of Fine Arts) while Arneson, Frey and Stanley studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts. From the early 1960s through the 1980s Arneson, De Forest and Wiley were on the faculty at the University of California, Davis. Brown taught at UC Berkeley, where she eventually chaired the Art Department. Frey and Stanley both taught at the California College of Arts and Crafts. Not to be overlooked, Arneson, Brown, De Forest and Wiley were represented by the same galleries on both coasts. The educational and professional connections between the exhibited artists highlight the collaborative and supportive environment that flourished in the Bay Area during this period. Their shared experiences at institutions (such as the San Francisco Art Institute and the California College of Arts and Crafts), as well as their subsequent roles as educators, highlight the symbiotic relationship between their artistic development and the nurturing community they helped cultivate. Robert Arneson (b. 1930, Benicia, California, d. 1992, Benicia, California), is known as one of the pre-eminent American sculptors of his generation. Arneson earned his BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts and his MFA in ceramics from Mills College. He founded the ceramics program at the University of California, Davis where he would remain on faculty for nearly thirty years. In the early 1960s, Arneson developed an irreverent and humorous approach to sculpture, later dubbed as “Funk.” He used self-portraiture as a method to examine the human condition: a theme present throughout his work until the end of his life. Arneson exhibited widely during his career and is recognized as a key figure in the re-consideration of ceramics as a sculptural medium. His work can be found in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois, among others. He has been the subject of several traveling retrospectives, in 1974, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; in 1986-87, organized by the Des Moines Art Center, Iowa, and posthumously in 1993, at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, California. Joan Brown (b. 1938, San Francisco, California, d. 1990, Puttaparthi, India) is considered a leading figure in the second generation of the Bay Area Figurative movement. Early on in her career, she received praise for dense Abstract Expressionist paintings, however she ultimately pivoted from the style in favor of autobiographical, figurative paintings. Her portraits and self-portraits were painted in a purposefully flat and colorful style. Brown earned both her BFA and MFA at the California College of Arts and Crafts and was a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley. Brown’s work is represented in many institutional collections across the country, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas. Her work is currently on tour in her most comprehensive retrospective to date. It opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California in 2022 before traveling to the Carnegie Museum of Art, Philadelphia. Its last stop will be at the Orange County Museum of Art, California, where it will be on view from February 1 - May 7, 2024. Roy De Forest (b. 1930, North Platte, Nebraska, d. 2007, Vallejo, California) was a painter, sculptor, and educator, and is considered a major contributor to both the Funk art and Nut art movements. De Forest earned his BA from the California School of Fine Arts and his MFA from San Francisco State University. De Forest was a professor at UC Davis for nearly three decades. He is known for his paintings depicting richly colored and textured fantasy worlds containing flat, stylized landscapes in juxtaposition with cartoon-like animals and human figures. He exhibited widely during his lifetime, and was the subject of two major retrospectives, one in 1974, and posthumously in 2017, organized by the Oakland Museum, California. His work can be found in major public collections internationally, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, among others. Viola Frey (b. 1933, Lodi, California, d. 2004, Oakland, California) was an artist known for her monumental ceramic sculptures, smaller figural groupings, and plates, though her practice also encompassed painting, drawing, and photography. She received her BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts and her MFA from Tulane University. Frey returned to the California College of Arts and Crafts as a professor in 1965, ultimately becoming chair of the ceramics program. Frey’s artistic style is characterized by an emphasis on the human figure, a robust visual vocabulary, and energetic color and line. Her work has been exhibited extensively and is included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, among others. M. Louise Stanley (b. 1942, Charleston, West Virginia) is known for work that explores narratives of both current and fictitious events and often incorporates social commentary and satire. She moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1965, where she received her BFA and MFA in painting from the California College of Arts and Crafts. She often employs “real” space juxtaposed with caricature to create an edgy effect. Similarly, she utilizes humor to connect with darker themes. Stanley’s involvement in the Women’s Artist movement inspired paintings relating to gender issues and sexual politics in the art world. She developed an alter ego who frequently appears in her paintings as an “Archetypal Artist”. Most recently, her work reflects research she conducted during her travels in Europe, where she led and organized the “Art Lover’s Tours” for 14 years. Her work has been exhibited widely throughout California, such as the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art; Richmond Art Center; and California College of Arts, among others. Stanley currently lives and works in Emeryville, California. William T. Wiley (b. 1937, Bedford, Indiana, d. 2021, Kentfield, California) was a multidisciplinary artist and educator known for his experimental approach and open personality. He was a key contributor to the Funk movement, and his interest in Americana led to his work being coined “Dude Ranch Dada.” While he initially focused on sculptures and assemblages, he is best known for dense landscapes and interior scenes overlaid with humorous text. Wiley exhibited widely throughout his career and his work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; and the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, among others.

Craig Calderwood

Ambrosia Salad, Bad Panacea and Other Works



November 3, 2023 - December 22, 2023
Craig Calderwood, Bad Panacea, 2023. Upholstery fabric, acrylic, wrought iron, One Shot enamel paint, 59 1/2 x 36 inches.

Peter Saul

Selected Works on Paper from the 1960s



November 3, 2023 - December 22, 2023
Peter Saul, Marfak, 1965. Crayon, ink on museum board, 30 x 40 inches.

Katherine Sherwood

Cajal's Revenge: New Paintings, 1998 - 2008



September 8, 2023 - October 28, 2023

Matjames Metson

A Tower



September 8, 2023 - October 28, 2023

Robert Arneson

Astonishing Possibiltiies for Self-Expression



May 19, 2023 - August 11, 2023

Enrique Chagoya

Borderless



April 7, 2023 - May 13, 2023

Maya Brodsky

Moments of Being



February 23, 2023 - April 1, 2023

Arnaldo Roche Rabell

Dualidades



January 6, 2023 - February 18, 2023

Sue Coe

Political Television



November 3, 2022 - December 22, 2022

Katherine Sherwood

Pandemic Madonnas and Other Views from the Garden



September 9, 2022 - October 29, 2022

Robert Arneson, Gustav Hamilton, Lucia Hierro, Nina Katchadourian, Scott Reeder, Edgar Serrano, Mungo Thomson, Alice Tippit, Trevor Winkfield

(m)ad-libs



July 7, 2022 - August 19, 2022

Robert Colescott

Frankly...



May 12, 2022 - July 1, 2022

Doug Biggert

Hitchhikers and a Sandal Shop



March 31, 2022 - May 7, 2022

Elmer Bischoff/Tom Burckhardt

A Dialogue



February 3, 2022 - March 19, 2022

Amer Kobaslija

In Passing



December 9, 2021 - January 29, 2022

Craig Calderwood & Terri Friedman & Cathy Lu & Cate White

Shapeshifters



October 28, 2021 - December 4, 2021

H. C. Westermann

Le Bandeur



September 9, 2021 - October 23, 2021
To inaugurate George Adams Gallery’s new Tribeca space, we are pleased to present drawings, prints and illustrated letters by H. C. Westermann, exploring his depictions of America.

Joan Brown

Drawn from Life: Works on Paper, 1970-1976



October 8, 2020 - December 19, 2020

Jack Beal, Manny Farber, Kevin Frances, Kija Lucas, Tony May

Documents



July 16, 2020 - September 26, 2020

Luis Cruz Azaceta

Personal Velocity: 40 Years of Painting



March 5, 2020 - May 30, 2020

Andrew Lenaghan

Places Have Their Moments



January 16, 2020 - February 29, 2020

Katherine Sherwood

In the Yelling Clinic: 2010-2019



November 7, 2019 - January 4, 2020

Robert Arneson

The Anti-War Works: 1982-1986



September 12, 2019 - October 26, 2019

Body/Object



July 11, 2019 - August 23, 2019
A group exhibition of paintings and drawings from the 1970s to the present.

Amer Kobaslija

Florida Diaries



April 25, 2019 - June 1, 2019

Joan Brown

The Students



April 25, 2019 - June 1, 2019

Jeremy Anderson

Between, Beyond: 1953-64



March 7, 2019 - April 20, 2019

Elmer Bischoff

Studies from Life



January 10, 2019 - March 2, 2019

Chris Ballantyne

Temporal: Recent Paintings and Watercolors



January 10, 2019 - March 2, 2019

30 Years: Frumkin/Adams - George Adams Gallery



November 8, 2018 - December 22, 2018

Luis Cruz Azaceta

Luis Cruz Azaceta, 1984 - 1989



September 13, 2018 - November 3, 2018

Tony May

Paintings, Objects, and Devices



June 28, 2018 - August 17, 2018

Enrique Chagoya

Then and Now: Aliens Sans Frontières



April 26, 2018 - June 23, 2018

Gregory Gillespie

Mind/Body/Spirit



March 1, 2018 - April 21, 2018