City Gallery (Manhattan)
City Gallery was an art gallery in New York City that exhibited the work of contemporary artists in a loft space that was run collectively by a group of young avant-garde artists.
The artists Red Grooms and Jay Milder founded the City Gallery in Grooms' second-floor Flatiron Loft on 26th Street and Sixth Avenue in 1958. When Phoenix Gallery –a cooperative gallery founded during the 10th Street gallery boom– refused to show Claes Oldenburg, Grooms and Milder dropped out of Phoenix and City Gallery presented Oldenberg's first New York City exhibition. City Gallery also gave Jim Dine his inaugural New York City exhibition. Other artists who showed at City Gallery include Mica Nava, Stephen Durkee, Mimi Gross, Bob Thompson, Lester Johnson, and Alex Katz. Grooms recalls, "We were reacting to Tenth Street. In '58 and '59, Tenth Street was sort of like SoHo is now, and it was getting all the lively attention of everyone downtown....We were just kids in our twenties..and had a flair for attracting people to our openings."
