JULIEN LEVY
American
Julien Levy opened his first art gallery in the depths
of the Great Depression in the autumn of 1931. As
a student at Harvard University, Levy had been
among a talented group of young men including
Alfred Barr and Arthur Everett ‘‘Chick’’ Austin,
who were to become pioneering curators of modern
art, who had studied art history with Paul Sachs,
and who would go on to be among the most impor-
tant catalysts for introducing modern art to the
United States. Levy met the artist Marcel Duch-
amp when his father purchased a Brancusi sculp-
ture and the two sailed for Paris together in 1927.
Soon after his arrival he met the poet Mina Loy
and her daughter Joella, and during his time in
Paris, Levy socialized within an art world that
included patron of the arts and collector Peggy
Guggenheim, photographers Man Ray, Berenice
Abbott, and Euge`ne Atget, and writer Gertrude
Stein. Levy imagined the possibility of capturing
this energy and aesthetic talent for New York—he
married Joella Loy and after the young couple
returned to Manhattan, Mina Loy would remain
Levy’s artistic mentor and professional link to the
Paris art scene.
After working for a few years at the Weyhe
Gallery, under the direction of print collector Carl
Zigrosser, Levy opened the Julien Levy Gallery at
602 Madison Avenue at 57th Street, on 2 Novem-
ber 1931. His first exhibition was meant as a tribute
to a man he considered one of his spiritual god-
fathers, Alfred Stieglitz. During the 1930s, Stieglitz
ran his own gallery called An American Place. Levy
sought a loan of photographs from Stieglitz for his
opening show, but the elder photographer declined,
suggesting instead that Levy mount and frame a
selection of photogravures from issues ofCamera
Workmagazine. Levy’s retrospective of American
photography featured the best of Pictorialist and
early Straight photography with work by Stieglitz,
Edward Steichen, Paul Strand, Gertrude Ka ̈sebier,
Clarence White, Anne W. Brigman, and Charles
Sheeler, as well as nineteenth-century images by
Civil War photographer and portraitist Mathew
Brady. Stieglitz’s response to Levy’s initial over-
tures of collaboration suggests his initially skeptical
attitude to the younger dealer’s efforts to promote
photography. However, the two men remained in
contact over the next decade, with Levy often visit-
ing Stieglitz at An American Place to share meals,
discuss art, and look at photographs together.
One of Levy’s most lasting contributions to the
history of photography developed from his friend-
ship with Man Ray and Berenice Abbott in Paris.
Abbott had befriended the elderly photographer
Euge`ne Atget, and took Levy to his studio where
Levy bought a large number of Atget’s prints.
When Atget died in 1927, Abbott rescued the vast
number of negatives and prints in his studio and
with the financial help of Levy, sought to promote
Atget’s remarkable archive of material. Back in
New York, Levy mounted an exhibition of Atget’s
work at the Weyhe Gallery, and then included
Atget in several exhibitions at the Julien Levy Gal-
lery. Levy promoted Atget’s work to his friend
Alfred Barr at the new Museum of Modern Art,
but the museum was not yet ready to accept photo-
graphs into the collection. Levy’s patience with the
project to support Atget’s archive grew thin, but
Abbott’s tireless efforts over the next several dec-
ades eventually resulted in the purchase of the
Atget Archive by the Museum of Modern Art in
1969, and Levy reaped the financial proceeds of
half the sale.
The Julien Levy Gallery is best known in art
history as the space where a U.S. audience first
encountered Surrealism, and although Levy’s keen
eye and willingness to take aesthetic risks made
artists such as Dorothea Tanning, Salvador Dali,
Max Ernst, and Joseph Cornell standard fare in his
exhibition seasons, Levy never abandoned his deep
commitment to promoting photography as a fine
art. During the two decades that Levy ran his gal-
lery, he presented a wide range of solo and group
photography exhibitions, exploring themes such as
the tradition of portrait photography, and drawing
important connections between European and
American photographers. Henri Cartier-Bresson
had his first solo exhibition at the Gallery in 1933,
and Lee Miller had her only solo show during her
lifetime at the Gallery the same year. Man Ray had
his first solo show in New York in April 1932.
Walker Evans, known now as a quintessentiallyLEVY, JULIEN