The Visionary Eye of Allan Stone

Allan Stone; Allan Stone Gallery, New York, c. 1975. Images courtesy of the Allan Stone Collection


Founded in 1960 by art dealer Allan Stone (1932–2006), the New York gallery known today as Allan Stone Projects has been admired for over half a century. Celebrated for its eclectic approach and early advocacy of pivotal artists of the 20th century, Allan Stone Gallery was a leading authority on Abstract Expressionism, the New York dealer for Wayne Thiebaud for over forty years, and showed the works of Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Joseph Cornell, John Graham and John Chamberlain. Stone also promoted the work of a younger generation of artists that were in conversation with other artists in his collection, working in the mediums of assemblage, collage and new modes of abstraction. In addition to modern masterworks and contemporary art, Allan Stone also collected and exhibited international folk art, Americana and important decorative arts and industrial design.

Rosamond Berg

Rosamond Berg's assemblage box constructions are comprised of many small, hand-dyed cloth pouches; their repetition and weight imply a gathering of powerful substances, lending her works a haunting, spiritual presence. Titles such as Autumn Light Dust show a concern for the ephemeral nature of seasons and materials. The underlying rhythm and sense of ritual suggests a potent energy stored away in these quietly charged objects.

Berg was born in Brewster, New York and received a BFA from Cornell University in 1954. After graduating, she spent a year in Rome as a professor's assistant at the American Academy. Her first exhibition was at Allan Stone Gallery, New York, in 1977 and she has since exhibited at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers. Her work is held in the collections of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., and the Neuberger Museum, Purchase. Berg lived and worked in New Canaan, Connecticut until her death in 2018.

Auction Results Rosamond Berg