Smithsonian Given Castelli Records
Famous NY Art Gallery's Documents Go to Archives of American Art
The records of Manhattan's famous Leo Castelli Gallery, documenting its 1957-1999 activities, were donated to the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art.
The Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art in Washington, D.C. made public on October 19, 2007 that it acquired the voluminous records of New York's distinguished Leo Castelli Gallery. The precious documents in hundreds of boxes, totalling more than 400 linear feet of paper, were donated by Jean-Christophe Castelli, Nina Castelli Sundell and Barbara Bertozzi Castelli, the late owner's son, daughter and widow, respectively.
Leo Castelli and His Gallery
One of the 20th Century's most influential art dealers in the United States, Leo Castelli (1907-1999) was of Italian and Austro-Hungarian Jewish extraction. From his gallery's founding in 1957 until the owner's death in 1999, Castelli was a pioneer in exhibiting the works of avant-garde American artists, having successfully predicted the course of Modernism at its every turn. He introduced revolutionary and cutting-edge works of Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Op Art, Color Field Painting, Minimalism, Conceptual Art and Neo-expressionism, among other movements, to the interested public.
The groundbreaking Leo Castelli Gallery has had three successive Manhattan locations: 4 East 77 Street, 420 Broadway and 18 East 77 Street, its current residence. In them, Mr. Castelli's cadre of contemporary artists whose works he exhibited included Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Cy Twombly (b. 1928), Lee Bontecou (b. 1931), Jasper Johns (b. 1930), Ellsworth Kelly (b. 1923), Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997), Robert Rauschenberg (b. 1925), Dan Flavin (1933-1996), Frank Stella (b. 1936), Richard Serra (b. 1939) and Bruce Nauman (b. 1941), among others.
Archives
The rich collection of the gallery's primary resource materials encompasses:
- original correspondence with artists, curators, collectors and international dealers;
- past exhibitions' information, announcements, invitations and reviews;
- auction, sales history and business documents; and
- an invaluable photographic record of shows' installations, their contents and the artists whom the discerning Mr. Castelli (1907-1999) represented.
An inveterate photographer of his displays, Mr. Castelli left behind thousands of images from his gallery's exhibitions, now a visual treasure trove for any scholar of American art created after World War Two.
Leo Castelli Gallery Today
Mrs. Castelli continues to operate and direct her late husband's well-known and respected gallery from its Upper East Side location, featuring works from the best of this generation's artists.
Sources:
- A View from the Sixties: Selections from the Leo Castelli Collection and the Michael and Ileana Sonnabend Collection (August 10-September 22, 1991). East Hampton, NY: Guild Hall Museum, 1991.
- Yenawine, Philip, et al. Castelli and His Artists/Twenty-five Years: A Catalogue and Exhibition Marking the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Castelli Gallery (exh. cat.). La Jolla, CA: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1982.
