Betty Parsons

painted driftwood assemblage by Betty Parsons

Betty Parsons invented the gallery space we know of today.

 “I was the first to put up plain white walls in a gallery." she said.

Before that, galleries had velvet walls and very Victorian decoration, 

which clearly were not going to work with the huge new Abstract Expressionists

 she was showing.

"When you’re showing a large painting by Jackson Pollack,

 the last thing the work needs is a plush velvet wall behind it. 

The white was very severe; 

I wanted nothing else in the gallery, no furniture, 

except maybe one chair of bench."

painted driftwood assemblage by Betty Parsons

Of course, the idea caught on.

 Despite huge negative reaction from the public, 

she fostered the work of Barnett Newman, 

William Congdon, Jackson Pollock, 

Clyfford Still, Ellsworth Kelly, Mark Rothko 

and Robert Rauschenberg .

Betty Parsons + dog

    She would say: “My first thought is: Is the artist any good? 

If he’s good, and he doesn’t sell,

 that doesn’t change my faith in him.”

painted driftwood assemblage by Betty Parsons

 “The worst thing was vandalism.

 People would come in, and when they left 

I would notice four letter words scribbled across Pollack paintings, 

 Newman pictures.

 They would try to cut the paintings too.”

          Betty Parson went where angels fear to tread. 

She loved New American art when no one else would touch it. 

She picked up Jackson Pollock when his patron, 

Peggy Guggenheim, left for Italy.

Peggy inherited $2.5 million from her father

 when he went down with the Titanic.

That $2.5 million would be about $20 million now.

 Aren't we happy she created a wonderful
 building to celebrate art?

painted driftwood assemblage by Betty Parsons

Betty Parsons brought modern art to America

 and caused the world's eyes to shift from Paris to New York.

 After World War II, and an out-of-the-blue inheritance,

 Betty set up the gallery and a beach side loft apartment 
where she created these assemblages
 from wood washed up on the ocean.

"It was the beginning of a great moment in American art

 that started there at Betty Parsons's,"

 Mr. Castelli said. "For the first time a great original 

art movement took place in America."

Betty Parsons abstract work

 

    She was totally progressive and didnt care

 one bit for what people thought of her.

Lucky she had an inheritance to fall back on and loved her artist so much. 

Critics, reacted with jeers and hostility. 

Some gallerygoers even penciled obscenities on the canvases.

painted driftwood assemblage by Betty Parsons

"People would slash the paintings," Hedda Sterne, the painter, recalled.

 "Everybody was telling Betty everything she showed was nonsense,

 but she had the courage of her opinions. 

Faith was her essential quality, faith in herself, 

in what she was doing and in the importance of art."

 'Looking for Freshness'

Mrs. Parsons was the lone dealer willing to represent these artists. 

She wasn't a business woman, she just loved the art.

 "Betty showed people because she believed
 in them and championed things that weren't appreciated, the new, the creative, the far out."

Why am I telling you all about Betty Parsons?

Because I am elbow deep in paint doing

 Flora Bowley's "Bloom True" course.

Yes, it's very abstract expressionist.

Ahem.

Only mine looks like I vomited 

and the vomit painted the canvas.