Portrait of a Young Girl (Antoinette M. Kraushaar), 1917 by George Benjamin Luks. Courtesy: Brooklyn Museum

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Kraushaar Galleries, the grande dame of American art vendors, celebrates 125 years in the business this fall with a book and a special exhibition at New York’s Archives of American Art.

So how old is 125 in gallery years? Seriously old. Just three other New York galleries have the distinction of having crossed their 125th milestone – James Graham & Sons (1857), Knoedler & Company (1846), and Babcock Galleries (1852).

Kraushaar Galleries: Celebrating 125 Years, written by art historian Betsy Fahlman, provides an overview of the gallery’s history, from its early days as an art supply shop to its role as a champion of American art. The book will be released on September 7, 2010 and sold at the gallery.

An exhibition of original letters, invoices, ledgers and archive material from the Kraushaar Galleries’ records at the Smithsonian Archives of Art will be on display from September 8 until December 8, 2010.

Charles W. Kraushaar opened the gallery at its original 33rd Street and Broadway location in 1885, selling artist supplies to young undiscovered talents such as Frederic Remington, Thomas Moran, and Albert Bierstadt. An early solo exhibition featuring French painter Henri Fantin-Latour and group shows including works by Barbizon School members Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, helped the gallery establish a reputation as an international leader in the arts.

Following Charles’s death in 1917, his brother John shifted the gallery’s focus to American artists and particularly a group of relative newcomers, who called themselves “The Eight.” Members included realist painters such as John Sloan, William Glackens, Robert Henri, and Arthur B. Davis.  George Luks, a friend of the dealer from an intramural baseball league, was the first to be represented.

Well known for discovering young emerging American artists and developing their careers, Kraushaar Galleries became instrumental in shaping the course of American art under the direction of John’s daughter Antoinette, who ran the gallery from the 1930s until her retirement in 1988.  She died in 1992 at the age of 90.

The gallery continues to show the works of the Eight as well as Charles Burchfield, Marsden Hartley, Louis Bouché, Gifford Beal, Marguerite Zorach and others.  It also represents contemporary painter Catherine Drabkin and new media artist Lee Walton.

Kraushaar Galleries has had just five directors in its 125 year run. Current President Carole M. Pesner was joined by a co-director, Katherine Degn, in 1986. The gallery is located at 74 East 79th Street.