Everything about Sidney Janis totally explained
Sidney Janis (1896-1989) was a wealthy clothing manufacturer and art collector who opened an art gallery in
New York in
1948. His gallery quickly gained prominence, for he not only exhibited the work of most of the emerging leaders of
Abstract Expressionism, but also that of such important European artists as
Pierre Bonnard,
Paul Klee,
Joan Mir%C3%B3, and
Piet Mondrian. As the critic
Clement Greenberg explained in a 1958 tribute to the dealer, Janis' exhibition practices had helped to establish the legitimacy of the Americans, for his policy "not only implied, it declared, that
Jackson Pollock,
Willem de Kooning,
Franz Kline,
Phillip Guston,
Mark Rothko, and
Robert Motherwell were to be judged by the same standards as
Matisse and
Picasso, without condescension, without making allowances." Greenberg observed that in the late '40s"the real issue was whether ambitious artists could live in this country by what they did ambitiously. Sidney Janis helped as much as anyone to see that it was decided affirmatively."==Beginnings==
Sidney Janis was born in
1896 in
Buffalo, New York, one of five children of a well-liked traveling salesman. A talented ballroom dancer, he left public high school in his senior year to travel on the eastern vaudeville circuit. Janis joined the
Naval Reserve in
1917 and took courses to complete his high school diploma. After his discharge, he returned to Buffalo to work with an older brother who had a chain of shoe stores. On his frequent trips to
New York, he met, courted, and in
1925 married Harriet Grossman, a writer passionate about music and the visual arts. Sidney and Harriet Janis visited as many art shows as they could. Sidney later maintained that visual experience was more important than schooling in developing an understanding and appreciation of art and the artist.
Collecting
In the mid-1920s, Sidney Janis opened his own shirt company,
M'Lord. Its signature item—a two-pocket, short-sleeved shirt that he designed—proved to be very popular. As the business grew and prospered, so did the Janises' passion for collecting art. The couple made annual trips to
Paris, where they met
Mondrian,
Picasso,
Léger,
Brancusi, and other masters. By the early 1930s, they'd acquired a number of major works by
Picasso,
Matisse,
De Chirico,
Dalí,
Mondrian, and the self-taught master
Henri Rousseau. In New York, Sidney and Harriet Janis became good friends with
Gorky, Keisler, and
Duchamp, all of whom often visited their apartment.
Career in art
In
1934, Janis was invited to join the Advisory Board of the
Museum of Modern Art. The following year, nineteen paintings from his private collection were shown at
MoMA, and in
1936 they were exhibited at the
Brooklyn Museum. In
1939, as Chairman of MoMA's Art Committee, Janis helped arrange the loan of Picasso's
Guernica to New York for the benefit of Spanish Refugee Relief.
Sidney Janis closed the shirt business to devote his time to writing on art in
1939. He collaborated with his wife Harriet on books about
Surrealism and
Picasso.
The Sidney Janis Gallery
Then, in
1948, when Janis was 52 years old, he and Harriet opened the Sidney Janis Gallery. The gallery soon acquired a strong reputation by mounting scholarly, curated exhibitions of
Léger,
Mondrian, the
Fauves, the
Futurists, and
de Stijl artists. In the 1950s, the gallery became a powerhouse of contemporary
avant-garde art. In
1952, Janis gave
Jackson Pollock the first of three solo shows. Also in this decade, the gallery represented
Willem de Kooning,
Franz Kline,
Mark Rothko,
Robert Motherwell,
Phillip Guston,
Adolph Gottlieb,
William Baziotes, and
Josef Albers. In addition to his promotion of the
Abstract Expressionists, Janis become the first blue chip gallery to show the Pop school. In the fall of 1962 he organized the groundbreaking exhibition, "The New Realists", an international survey of contemporary Pop and related movements. The Sidney Janis Gallery soon became a leading exhibitor and dealer in
Pop art, representing
Claes Oldenburg,
Jim Dine,
Tom Wesselmann,
George Segal, and
Marisol.
Perhaps Janis' greatest genius lay in exhibiting the work of acknowledged masters alongside that of emerging artists. By placing the new work in the context of great modern art, Sidney Janis focused critical eyes on contemporary art in a different, brilliant and discriminating way. He continued throughout to show
Giacometti,
Mondrian (whose estate he acquired),
Arp,
Magritte,
Dubuffet,
Duchamp,
Léger, and
Picasso, interspersing these exhibitions with solo shows and group shows of trend-setting contemporary art.
As a collector, Sidney Janis had an unparalleled eye. In
1967, he donated 103 works from his collection to the
Museum of Modern Art, including six late
Mondrian oils,
Boccioni's
Dynamism of a Football Player, and
Picasso's
Artist and Model. MoMA's founding director,
Alfred Barr, declared that this donation was "unequaled among the great gifts" the museum had received.
In 1984, the French Government awarded Mr. Janis its highest honor for distinguished contribution to cultural life, Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He received the New York Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture in 1987.
Sidney Janis remained active at the gallery through his later years, organizing the unique
Mondrian + Brancusi exhibition in
1982, when he was 86 years old. He died at the age of 93 in New York.
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