page_title: Grand Central Art Galleries
section_title: Members' Art Drawings
hierarchical_section_title: Grand Central Art Galleries / Members' Art Drawings
caption_attribution_description: English: Walter Leighton Clark, Helen Holt Hawley, and Bruce Crane at the Grand Central Art Galleries' 1933 members' drawing.
context_page_description: The Grand Central Art Galleries were the exhibition and administrative space of the nonprofit Painters and Sculptors Gallery Association, an artists' cooperative established in 1922 by Walter Leighton Clark together with John Singer Sargent, Edmund Greacen, and others. Artists closely associated with the Grand Central Art Galleries included Hovsep Pushman, George de Forest Brush, and especially Sargent, whose posthumous show took place there in 1928.
  The Galleries were active from 1923 until 1994. For 29 years they were located on the sixth floor of Grand Central Terminal. At their 1923 opening, the Galleries covered 14,000 square feet and offered nine exhibition areas and a reception room, described as "the largest sales gallery of art in the world." In 1958 the Galleries moved to the second floor of the Biltmore Hotel, where they had six exhibition rooms and an office. They remained at the Biltmore for 23 years, until it was converted into an office building. The Galleries then moved to 24 West 57th Street, where they remained until they ceased activity.
  In addition to their main offices, the Grand Central Art Galleries directed a number of other enterprises.
context_section_description: The Grand Central Art Galleries were founded on the idea of a respectful and mutually beneficial relationship between artists and those interested in art. Artist members donated one work a year for three years as their initiation fee; lay members gave a yearly sum in return for a work of art after the first year's membership. Works donated by the artists were distributed to the lay members at an annual drawing. A yearly catalog indicated the works to be distributed at a drawing and reception at the gallery.
  As described in the 1934 catalog, the procedure was as follows:
  "[The drawing] will be accomplished by placing the name of each lay member on a slip of paper in a sealed jar which will be shaken thoroughly. Then before the entire audience the seal will be broken and a child will draw the names, one at a time, and they will be read aloud and entered on a list. The name first drawn will have first choice of all the contributed works of art. The second name drawn will have a free choice after number one has made his selection and the third name will then have the privilege of making his choice from all the works that remain, and so on until the last name."
  Available works were played on display prior to the drawing, and lay members were requested to "make a list of thirty choices, arranging same in the order of his preference." This pre-selection would allow the awarded paintings to be announced the evening of the drawing. Because of the wide range of works being offered, the drawing — and in particular, an early selection — was important.
  1925: The name of Harold H. Swift, the Chicago meatpacker, was the first selected, and he chose John Singer Sargent's 1918 painting, Shoeing Cavalry Horses at the Front, worth $15,000 at the time.
  1927: The first name selected was that of Henry W. Cannon, who chose H. Bolton Jones's landscape In the Berkshires.
  1930: The slips with the members' names were selected by Nancy Clark Dunn, granddaughter of Walter Leighton Clark. The works that year were reportedly worth $100,000. The person whose name was first chosen selected Chauncey Ryder's River Road to Sheffield.
  1936: The first name drawn was that of Walter S. Gifford, president of AT&T. he selected a Hovsep Pushman still life of a Chinese statuette.
  1941: Works of 82 artist-members are distributed at the annual drawing. Film star Gloria Swanson presided, "dressed in a simple black costume with a large black hat." The first name drawn was that of Arthur B. Davis, president of the Aluminum Company of America; he chose H. Bolton Jones's painting The Shore. Eugene Frank of Columbia University was selected next, and he chose Hovsep Pushman's Fading Rose. The third name drawn was A.E. Clegg, president of the Kerr Steamship Company, who selected Frederick Judd Waugh's Invading Spindrift.
caption: Walter Leighton Clark, Helen Holt Hawley, and Bruce Crane at the Grand Central Art Galleries' 1933 members' drawing.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2012:04:20 15:27:02", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5650", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "776", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "919"}