New York’s Washburn Gallery to Permanently Close After Five Decades

New York’s Washburn Gallery will close its space in Chelsea after five decades in operation.

In 2017, the gallery’s founders, Joan and Brian Washburn, vacated their previous space at 20 West 57th Street in Manhattan and suspended their exhibition schedule when a city demolition plan threatened to displace a group of galleries there. Washburn Gallery had been in that location for 25 years before their landlord ended the lease agreement, forcing them to move to their next and final current location, at 177 10th Avenue, in Chelsea’s gallery district, close to mega-dealers like David Zwirner and Gagosian.

The couple established the gallery in 1971 and for years spotlighted American artists like Philip Guston, Al Held, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Alfred Steiglitz. They worked with the estates of prominent American figures like Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock, who were married for more than a decade until Pollock’s death in 1956.

Over the course of 53 years in business, they mounted more than 400 exhibitions and managed to bring their artists to a fair nearly every year. Their final show was a Claude Carone exhibition that closed on December 23.

In a statement, the gallery’s founders said that will continue to represent artists and estates, even without a permanent location, and will maintain an existing website to manage the gallery’s history. They will also continue to stay involved in research initiatives with museums, galleries, curators, and collectors, but their announcement did not explain the closure. (A gallery representative did not immediately respond to ARTnews’s request for additional comment.)

Washburn joins other small and mid-size peers that have closed their doors in the last two years. Among the New York galleries that have closed since 2022 are JTT, Metro Pictures, and Cheim & Read.