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Home>Exhibitions>Past>2016>Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959–1971

# Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959–1971

September 30, 2016 – January 29, 2017East Building, Concourse Galleries

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Franz Kline, American, 1910–1962, *Pittston*, 1958, oil on canvas, Collection of Lynn and Allen Turner

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Philip Guston, American, born Canada, 1913–1980, *Sleeper II*, 1959, oil on canvas, Jeanne and Richard Levitt, Des Moines, Iowa. © Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & Wirth

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Larry Rivers, American, 1923–2002, *Maquette for Larry Rivers Exhibition at Dwan Gallery*, 1961, collage of cut-out text, paint, and tape on gelatin silver print mounted on paper board, Collection of Virginia Dwan

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Robert Rauschenberg, American, 1925–2008, *Coexistence*, 1961, oil, fabric, wood, and other found materials on canvas, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of the Sydney and Frances Lewis Foundation

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Claes Oldenburg, American, born Sweden, 1929, *Study for Announcement  for One-Man Show at Dwan Gallery—Mickey Mouse with Red Heart*, 1963, wax crayon and watercolor on paper, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Gift of The American Contemporary Art Foundation, Inc., Leonard A. Lauder, President. © 1963 Claes Oldenburg

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
James Rosenquist, American, born 1933, *Toaster*, 1963, oil on vinyl, chromed barbed wire, metal saw blades, plastic, and wood, with dripped paint, Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles. Art © James Rosenquist/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Yves Klein, French, 1928–1962, *Untitled Blue Monochrome*, 1960, dry pigment and synthetic resin on canvas mounted on board, Collection of Virginia Dwan. © Yves Klein, ADAGP, Paris/ARS, New York, 2016

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Martial Raysse, French, born 1936, *Made in Japan*, 1964, photo-mechanical reproductions and wallpaper with airbrush ink, gouache, ink, tacks, peacock feathers, and plastic flies on paper mounted on fiberboard, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1972

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Arman, American, born France, 1928–2005, *Alarm Clocks (Reveils)*, 1960, alarm clocks in painted wood box, Collection Museum  of Contemporary Art Chicago, Gift of Debra and Robert N. Mayer from the Robert B. Mayer Memorial Loan Collection

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Jean Tinguely, Swiss, 1925–1991, *Portrait of Virginia*, 1963, mixed media construction with radio, circuit board, andiron, speaker, and motor, Collection of Virginia Dwan

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Niki de Saint Phalle, French, 1930–2002, *Tyrannousaurus Rex etranglé par un cobra*, c. 1963, colored markers, ballpoint pen, and graphite on paper, Collection of Virginia Dwan

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Edward Kienholz, American, 1927–1994, *Back Seat Dodge ’38*, 1964, paint, fiberglass and flock, 1938 Dodge, recorded music and player, chicken wire, beer bottles, artificial grass, and cast plaster figures, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Purchased with funds provided by the Art Museum Council Fund. © Kienholz. Courtesy of L.A. Louver, Venice, CA

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Agnes Martin, American, born Canada, 1912–2004, *The Cliff*, 1967, acrylic and graphite on canvas, Collection of Virginia Dwan

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Robert Morris, American, born 1931, *Untitled (Battered Cubes)*, 1966, painted fiberglass, Collection of Virginia Dwan. © 2016 Robert Morris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Dan Flavin, American, 1933–1996, *“monument” for V. Tatlin*, 1966, cool white fluorescent light, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Virginia Dwan

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Sol LeWitt, American, 1928–2007, *Serial Project, 1 (ABCD)*, 1966, baked enamel on steel units over baked enamel on aluminum, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Gift of Agnes Gund and purchase (by exchange), 1978. © 2016 The LeWitt Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Eleanor Antin, American, born 1935, *Blood of a Poet Box*, 1965–1968, wood box containing ninety-four glass slides of blood specimens and specimen list, Lent by the American Fund for the Tate Gallery 2009. © Tate, London 2016

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Mel Bochner, American, born 1940, *Language Is Not Transparent*, 1970, chalk on paint and wall, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Modern and Contemporary Art Council Fund 

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Robert Smithson, American, 1938–1973, *Gyrostasis*, 1967, painted steel, Collection of Virginia Dwan. Art © Holt-Smithson Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Robert Smithson, American, 1938–1973, *Spiral Jetty*, 1970, black basalt rocks and earth, Great Salt Lake, Utah. Dia Art Foundation, New York. Art © Holt-Smithson Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Photo © Gianfranco Gorgoni, 1970

Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery 1957–1971
Charles Ross, American, born 1937, *Star Axis*, 1971–ongoing, granite, sandstone, bronze, stainless steel, and earth, Chupinas Mesa, New Mexico. Photograph Kerry Loewen

**This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.**

**Overview:** The remarkable career of gallerist and patron Virginia Dwan will be featured front and center for the first time in an exhibition of some 100 works, featuring highlights from Dwan's promised gift of her extraordinary personal collection to the National Gallery of Art. Founded by Dwan in a storefront in Los Angeles in 1959, Dwan's West Coast enterprise was a leading avant-garde space in the early 1960s, presenting works by abstract expressionists, neo-dadaists, pop artists, and *nouveaux réalistes*, including Philip Guston, Franz Kline, Ad Reinhardt, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Edward Kienholz, Yves Klein, Joseph Kosuth, Arman, Martial Raysse, Niki di Sant Phalle, and Jean Tinguely. In 1965, Dwan established a gallery in New York where she presented groundbreaking exhibitions of such new tendencies as minimalism, conceptual art, and land art, featuring works by Carl Andre, Walter de Maria, Dan Flavin, Michael Heizer, Robert Morris, Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, Charles Ross, Robert Ryman, and Robert Smithson, among others. Dwan emerged as a leading patron of earth works during this period, sponsoring Heizer's monumental sculptures*Double Negative* (1969) and *City* (begun 1972); Smithson's masterpiece *Spiral Jetty* (1970); the first version of Walter de Maria's *Lightning Field* (1974); and Ross's *Star Axis* (begun 1971). The exhibition will trace Dwan's activities and the emergence of an avant-garde gallery in an age of mobility, when air travel and the interstate highway system linked the two coasts and transformed the making of art and the sites of its exhibition.

**Organization:** Organized by National Gallery of Art, Washington

**Sponsor: **The exhibition is made possible through the generous support of the Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation.

**Attendance:**  63,996

**Catalog:**Los Angeles to New York Dwan Gallery 1959-1971. By James Meyer, et al. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art and Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016.

**Other Venues:**  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, March 19–September 10, 2017

In the Library: Selections from the Dwan Gallery and Virginia Dwan Archives

Press Release

Exhibition Checklist

Gallery Shops: Exhibition Catalog

                  - Issue, 1966/2016
                  -                                     Video, Released:                                    February 13, 2018, (4:34 minutes)                                
                  - Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery
                  -                                     Video, Released:                                    January 10, 2017, (23:37 minutes)                                
                  - Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959 – 1971, VI: Some Art Is Hard to See: Field Trips with Virginia Dwan
                  -                                     Audio, Released:                                    January 3, 2017, (41:38 minutes)                                
                  - Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959 – 1971, V: Liberating Artist and Exhibition:  Dwan Gallery and the Reconceptualization of Site
                  -                                     Audio, Released:                                    December 27, 2016, (41:38 minutes)                                
                  - Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959 – 1971, IV: Rethinking Minimalism
                  -                                     Audio, Released:                                    December 13, 2016, (41:38 minutes)                                
                  - Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959 – 1971, III: Tableaux in Three Dimensions: Kienholz’s Social Theater at Ferus and Dwan
                  -                                     Audio, Released:                                    December 6, 2016, (41:38 minutes)                                
                  - Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959 – 1971, II: Learning from LA
                  -                                     Audio, Released:                                    November 29, 2016, (43:13 minutes)                                
                  - Discoveries from the Dwan Gallery and Virginia Dwan Archives 
                  -                                     Video, Released:                                    November 22, 2016, (28:47 minutes)                                
                  - Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959 – 1971, I: West Coast, East Coast
                  -                                     Audio, Released:                                    November 22, 2016, (41:38 minutes)                                
                  - Discoveries from the Dwan Gallery and Virginia Dwan Archives 
                  -                                     Audio, Released:                                    October 11, 2016, (28:47 minutes)                                
                  - Conversation with Collectors: Virginia Dwan and James Meyer
                  -                                     Video, Released:                                    October 4, 2016, (64:25 minutes)                                
                  - Conversation with Collectors: Virginia Dwan and James Meyer
                  -                                     Audio, Released:                                    October 4, 2016, (64:25 minutes)                                
                  - Press Event: Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959–1971
                  -                                     Audio, Released:                                    September 27, 2016, (11:45 minutes)                                
                  - Jean Tinguely, "Odessa"
                  -                                     Video, Released:                                    September 27, 2016, (2:10 minutes)                                
                  - Jean Tinguely, "Portrait of Virginia"
                  -                                     Video, Released:                                    September 27, 2016, (1:31 minutes)                                
                  - Virginia Dwan, Journey to Southern Mexico
                  -                                     Video, Released:                                    September 27, 2016, (3:51 minutes)                                

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