The Braunstein/Quay Gallery records measure 36.9 linear feet and date from 1956 to 2011. The records consist of administrative records, artist files, exhibition and event files, and financial records that shed light on the gallery's operations through correspondence, price lists, inventories, printed material, born digital material, photographs, and more.
Scope and Contents:
The Braunstein/Quay Gallery records measure 36.9 linear feet and date from 1956 to 2011. The records consist of administrative papers, artist files, exhibition and event files, and financial records that shed light on the gallery's operations through correspondence, price lists, inventories, printed material, born digital material, photographs, and more.
Administrative records consist of property records, advertising files, papers related to professional organizations, non-profits, 139 Spring Street Inc., and scant personal and professional papers from Ruth Braunstein. Correspondence files include letters exchanged between Braunstein and collectors, museums and galleries, artists, conservationists, and printers. Photographs found here depict the gallery's physical space as well as images captured during events, exhibitions, and installations from the 1960s to 1980s.
Artist files mostly include resumes or biographies, correspondence, price lists, newspaper clippings, exhibition announcements, press releases, and catalogs. Folders might also include press packets, a mixture of personal and professional correspondence; CDs, DVDs, photographs, slides, and negatives of artists, artwork, and gallery installations; exhibition material such as loan agreements, announcements and catalogs, reviews, and notices of sale; shipping and transportation papers; and financial records.
Exhibition and event files shed light on group exhibitions held at Braunstein/Quay and events and exhibitions held elsewhere that involved artwork or artists with Braunstein/Quay. Folders might include contracts and agreements, loan and shipping records, correspondence, printed material, photographs, born digital materials, financial papers, and artist resumes. Also found here are press releases, catalogs, announcement cards, and scant clippings from Braunstein/Quay's exhibitions. Financial records consist of artist statements, sales records, and bills for shipping, framing, conservation, and utilities.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as four series.
Series 1: Administrative Records, 1961-2009 (Box 1-4; 3.5 linear feet)
Series 2: Artist Files, 1956-2011 (Box 4-29, 39; 25.2 linear feet)
Series 3: Exhibition and Event Files, 1961-2010 (Box 29-33; 4.4 linear feet)
Series 4: Financial Records, 1965-1996 (Box 33-39; 3.8 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Braunstein/Quay Gallery was a contemporary art gallery founded in 1961 in San Francisco, California, by Ruth Braunstein. An early proponent of sculptural clay, fiber art, art furniture, glass, and ceramic work as fine art, the gallery dealt with contemporary art in various mediums. Some of Braunstein/Quay's most well-known artists include Peter Voulkos, Richard Shaw, Robert Brady, John Altoon, Bruce Conner, and Mary Snowden.
Ruth Braunstein and Verna Are began renting a gallery space in Tiburon, California, in July 1961 under the name Gallery 32. Verna Are's expertise was in furniture and interior design items, while Braunstein's was contemporary fine art. Later in the summer of 1961, Braunstein changed the name to The Quay Gallery. She credited architect Raphael Soriano as having come up with the name. In the early 60s, Braunstein developed relationships with others in the California art community, namely David Stuart, Jackie Anhalt, Felix Landau, and Rolf Nelson. Early artists at the gallery included Hal Riegger, Doris Aller, Igor Medvedev, Win NG, Jim Melchert, and Elton Bennet.
In May 1965, Braunstein moved the gallery to San Francisco. After fellow gallerist Jim Newman closed his gallery near Braunstein's in 1968, Braunstein began showing several of Newman's artists, including Richard Shaw, Bruce Conner, Jeremy Anderson, and Sidney Gordon. In 1968, the gallery had its first show of Peter Voulkos's work after agreeing to pay him a stipend for one year. Voulkos and Braunstein's relationship continued into the 2000s.
In 1970, Braunstein went into business with collector Rena Bransten to start Quay Ceramics Gallery. Silvia Brown was involved with the business for one year, and later, Bransten's daughter, Trish, became partners with Braunstein after her mother left. Ruth Braunstein still operated her art gallery, then named Braunstein Gallery, which had moved from its original location on Jerome Street to Sutter Street in San Francisco. Quay Ceramics Gallery was located next door. Several administrative changes and name variations occurred over the next few decades, but Braunstein kept its gallery space on Sutter Street until 1999.
In 1975, Ruth Braunstein joined gallerists Phyllis Kind from Chicago, Carl Solway from Cincinnati, and Ed Thorp from Santa Barbara to establish a gallery in New York called 139 Spring Street, Inc. They opened with a show of Peter Voulkos and Sam Tchakalian. Only Voulkos artwork sold; bought by fellow art dealer Grace Borgenicht. The partners dismantled the gallery coop four years later.
Braunstein/Quay promoted the San Francisco art scene and the careers of many artists for 50 years. In addition to the artists mentioned above, other artists influenced by Braunstein/Quay include Dominic DiMare, Gyongy Laky, Myra Block, Elin Elisofon, Robilee Frederick, Bean Finneran, David Anderson, Kimberly Austin, Arthur Okamura, Dennis Oppenheim, and Kyle Reicher. Braunstein/Quay, known to represent Braunstein's perspective on what she connotated as 'fine art,' exhibited works in the 1990s by tattoo artist Don Ed Hardy, and held a group show exhibiting works by tattoo artists, Out of Skin: Work by Tattooers (1996). Other unique shows included a group exhibition dedicated to dog imagery, The Dog Show, A Group Exhibition (1988); a group exhibition of book art, Redefining the Book (1994); and an exhibition of photographs of actress and Andy Warhol associate, Candy Darling, Candy Darling, Always a Lady (1997). In 2010, Cabrillo Gallery held a retrospective of Braunstein's career as a gallerist, Ruth Braunstein and the Braunstein Quay Gallery, 1961-Present.
Ruth Braunstein was born in Minneapolis in 1923. She pursued a career in modern dance, dancing professionally in Washington D.C. and at the Minneapolis Dance Center. She married Theodore Braunstein in 1943. They moved to San Francisco, California, in 1960 and had two children, born two years apart. Aside from her career as a gallerist, Braunstein gave lectures, juried art competitions, participated in workshops, and was involved in various professional art organizations. In the early 1970s, Ruth Braunstein, along with a group that included Michael Wallace, Jim Willis, Buzz Sawyer, and Helen Henninger, founded the San Francisco Art Dealers' Association. The association put on a series of Introductions exhibitions every July for artists who had never shown in San Francisco; these exhibitions ran until 2002. Braunstein was also a committee member for ArtTable and on the board of Fiberworks. She passed away in September, 2016.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in several installments from 1974 to 2011 by gallery director and owner Ruth Braunstein.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Art dealers -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Braunstein/Quay Gallery records, 1956-2011. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz--human scale / foreword by Shirley David ; introduction by Henry T. Hopkins ; essays by Lawrence Weschler, Edward Kienholz and Ron Glowen
Edward and Nancy Kienholz : "The merry-go-world or begat by chance and the wonder horse Trigger" : November 21, 1992-January 2, 1993, Louver Gallery, New York
Edward Kienholz, Roxys and other works : aus der Sammlung Reinhard Onnasch / [Texte, Nancy Reddin Kienholz, Ilona Lindenberg, Knut Nievers ; Übersetzungen, Ann Holyoke Lehmann]
Kienholz in context : Edward Kienholz , Nancy Reddin Kienholz : May 4 - June 3, 1984, Cheney Cowles Memorial Museum, Eastern Washington State Historical Society, Touchstone Center for the Visual Arts, Spokane, Washington
