Galerie St. Etienne

Galerie St. Etienne is a New York art gallery specializing in Austrian and German Expressionism, as well as American and European self-taught artists. Established in 1939 by Otto Kallir, the gallery served for over 80 years as the leading American showplace for these movements. It played a foundational role in introducing Expressionism to the United States and was the exclusive representative of Anna Mary Robertson, known as Grandma Moses. In 2019, the gallery ceased its commercial activities and closed its exhibition space at the end of 2020, transitioning its scholarly operations and archives to the Kallir Research Institute, a nonprofit foundation established in 2017. It maintains a limited inventory and represents the contemporary artist Sue Coe.

The institution's origins trace back to 1923, when Otto Kallir, originally named Nirenstein, founded the Neue Galerie in Vienna near the Cathedral of St. Stephen, or Stephansdom. Following the 1938 Nazi annexation of Austria, Kallir faced persecution for being Jewish and supporting the Schuschnigg government. He sold the Neue Galerie to his secretary, Vita Künstler, who preserved it and returned it to him after World War II. Because the modern art he handled was deemed degenerate by the Nazis and exempt from Austrian export laws, Kallir took a significant portion of his inventory into exile. After a brief stop in Lucerne, Switzerland, where he was denied a work permit, he relocated to Paris and founded the Galerie St. Etienne, named after his Vienna gallery's location. When France refused to grant his wife and children residence permits, the family emigrated to the United States in 1939, reestablishing the Galerie St. Etienne in New York. Upon Otto Kallir's death in 1978, the gallery was co-directed by his granddaughter, Jane Kallir, and his longtime associate Hildegard Bachert, who pioneered a program of loaned museum exhibitions accompanied by scholarly catalogues. Bachert remained co-director until her death at age 98 in 2020, the same year the gallery transitioned from a commercial enterprise to a nonprofit focus.

The gallery's primary focus is Austrian and German Expressionism, a field it systematically introduced to the American public through exhibitions, sales, and donations to institutions like the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. In the 1940s and 1950s, the gallery hosted the first American exhibitions for major modernists including Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Alfred Kubin, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Käthe Kollwitz, Vally Wieselthier, and Egon Schiele. Seeking to capture the identity of his new homeland, Kallir expanded into American folk and self-taught art, exhibiting Navajo and Hopi weavings in 1941 and representing artists like Grandma Moses, Henry Darger, John Kane, Ilija Bosilj, Michel Nedjar, and the artists of Gugging. The gallery also maintained a robust publishing and scholarly tradition, producing foundational catalogues raisonnés for Egon Schiele's paintings in 1930 and 1966, his prints in 1970, Grandma Moses in 1973, and Richard Gerstl in 1974.

The gallery's most famous association was with Grandma Moses, whose first solo exhibition it hosted in 1940, a relationship cultivated by Hildegard Bachert. Moses became one of the most renowned American artists of the immediate postwar era under the gallery's exclusive representation. The gallery also holds a significant place in the history of Egon Schiele's work, having mounted the first major posthumous exhibition of his art in Vienna in 1923 and publishing his portfolio Das Graphische Werk von Egon Schiele. Its current limited inventory includes works by Leonard Baskin, Max Beckmann, Lovis Corinth, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Erich Heckel, E.L. Kirchner, Gustav Klimt, Alfred Kubin, Oskar Kokoschka, Käthe Kollwitz, Emil Nolde, and Egon Schiele, alongside self-taught artists Ilija Bosilj-Basicevic, Morris Hirshfield, John Kane, Grandma Moses, and Josef Karl Rädler. It continues to represent the contemporary artist Sue Coe.

Upon moving to New York in 1939, the gallery was initially located at 46 West 57th Street. It later operated for decades at 24 West 57th Street, maintaining its presence in the Midtown Manhattan gallery district. Following the closure of its exhibition space at the end of 2020, the gallery relocated its operations to 156 West 56th Street, Suite 802, New York, NY 10019.

The gallery is currently located at 156 West 56th Street, Suite 802, in New York City. It closed its public exhibition space at the end of 2020 and ceased commercial activities to focus on art advice and archive preservation. Its library, archives, and scholarly activities have been transferred to the Kallir Research Institute, a nonprofit foundation established by Jane Kallir in 2017. The institute oversees projects such as the digitization of the Egon Schiele catalogue raisonné. The gallery maintains a limited inventory and can be contacted for further information regarding its historical holdings.