A Knoedler NYC Location History

Knoedler Co, circa 1910

The NY Times just ran a interesting history of the various New York city locations of the now closed Knoedler gallery. The Knoedler has been sellin

As many know Knoedler has recently closed and is also the center of investigations into a series of fraudulent sales (see earlier post).

Over the past few years there have been numerous complaints and lawsuits regarding many important galleries, including Knoedler, Berry Hill and Salander-O'Reilly.

The NY Times reports

The French-born Michel Knoedler had been selling art in New York since 1846, and by the 1890s was in an old row house at Fifth Avenue and 34th. In 1905 The Real Estate Record and Guide reported that he had hired McKim, Mead & White to build a new structure.

But, after buying a 50-foot-wide midblock lot on Fifth south of 46th, he retained Carrère & Hastings, which designed 556 Fifth Avenue, finished in 1911.

This was the era when collectors shifted their focus to old masters, which dealers gave very contemporary prices. Knoedler’s new limestone building had the aspect of an Italian palazzo, but one that you might find in London in the early 1800s. The stone walls of the magnificent ground floor were vermiculated, shot through with wormlike trails, completely au courant for Fifth Avenue.

On June 14, 1918, the art dealer René Gimpel wrote in his diary, perhaps enviously, that the gallery offered a broad selection: “You’re looking for an engraving for $5 that you’d find on the quays for five sous? You’ll get it here. It’s a Rembrandt etching you fancy, or a very rare 18th-century engraving? Five thousand dollars — it’s yours! Name it; they’ll show you it.”

According to a 1948 article by the critic Aline Saarinen in The New York Times, Knoedler gave the first charity benefit show, in early 1912; 8,000 people paid 50 cents each to see works by Vermeer and Velázquez. Later in the year, a show on behalf of women’s suffrage raised half as much, $2,000

Source: NY Times