It’s been 30 years since Ethel Schwabacher had a real solo exhibition in New York. But in the 1950s she was at the forefront of the abstract expressionist movement, showing vibrant canvases in bright colors, flowing brushstrokes and even excerpts from poems a la Betty Parson Gallery in New York.
“Ethel was also a poet, so she would put lines of her poetry into her paintings, which for the 1950s was way ahead of her time,” Christine Berry, co-founder of New York’s Berry Campbell Gallery, told Artnet. News.
Now the late artist – who worked in the collections of institutions such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – is enjoying a well-deserved revival in Berry Campbell.
At the Chelsea Gallery, an almost sold-out exhibition is on view throughout this weekend. The works, priced at $165,000 to $400,000, well above the artist’s auction record of $56,250, set in 2020, according to the Artnet Price Database— focuses on the artist’s works from the 1950s.
Ethel Schwabacher, Seasons and Days: July (1955). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.
For decades, the Schwabacher estate has been represented by Anita Shapolsky Galleryan elderly Upper East Side drug dealer who hosts about three shows a year from her townhouse.
The past few years have been a time of rediscovery for many other women in the Ab Ex movement, with the acclaimed book Mary Gabriel Ninth Street Womenand in the landmark 2016 Denver Art Museum to show “Women of Abstract Expressionism.” But it looked like Schwabacher, one of Denver’s 12 entertainers, might be left behind.
Enter Berry Campbell, who also represents the Estates of Judith Godvin And Fine Pearltwo of the other women on the Denver show.
When dealers contacted the artist’s son, attorney Christopher Schwabacher (who represented Parsons for years), they were shocked and delighted to discover hundreds of paintings, unpublished for decades, neatly stored in a warehouse. This included the show’s centerpiece, Prometheusa canvas from 1959 that had to be unrolled and stretched for the occasion.
Ethel Schwabacher, Prometheus (1959). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.
“These all have Betty Parsons tags on the back,” Berry said. “It’s incredible.”
The artist continued to paint until his death in 1984, and dealers hope to build an appreciation for Schwabacher’s work with a series of exhibitions spanning his entire career.
“We originally thought we had to do a retrospective since no one knew who she was, but the paintings were so strong,” added gallery co-founder Martha Campbell.
When Artnet News visited”Ethel Schwabacher: Woman in Nature (1950s Paintings)it was a busy afternoon.
Ethel Schwabacher (circa 1955). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.
Christopher Schwabacher and his wife, Hannelore, had stopped to visit, and there were repairmen in the space—a construction project nearby had dropped an anvil on the gallery skylight, shattering the glass. Luckily no one was injured and the paintings were not damaged.
Christopher Schwabacher, now 81, was unfazed by the incident and happy to share childhood memories of his mother painting – a widow, she would put on classical music to drown out the sound of him playing with her sister, Brenda Webster, while she worked. The living room has been transformed into an art studio.
“I have never seen so many tubes of paint. As children, we were fascinated by them,” Christopher Schwabacher told Artnet News. “When we could kind of let it go and not be so careful was when she brought her brushes to the pantry faucet to wash them.”
Decades later, the artist’s son hopes the time has come to re-evaluate Schwabacher’s career – and he sees the skylight incident as a good omen: “We’re having resounding success here!”
See more paintings from the show below.
Ethel Schwabacher, Origins i (1958). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.
Ethel Schwabacher, Pennington: Return and Departure of the Birds (1957). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.
Ethel Schwabacher, Return no. 3 (1957). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.
Ethel Schwabacher, Footsteps of the sun (1957). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.
Ethel Schwabacher, Return and Departure (1956). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.
“Ethel Schwabacher: Woman in Nature (1950s Paintings)” is on view at Berry Campbell, 524 West 26th Street, New York, New York, April 20 through May 26, 2023.
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