Julie Saul Gallery Records
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Abstract
The Julie Saul Gallery Records (1976-2021) document a woman-owned New York City art gallery active during the late 1980s to 2019 that specialized in traditional and avant-garde contemporary photography. This collection documents the Gallery's support, promotion, and exhibition of artists working in photography through artists payment receipts, exhibition planning files, press clippings, floor plans, and sales and consignment records. These records illustrate the administration of a gallery as well as the trends in art and artists through multiple decades. Additionally, Saul's journals document her business and personal travels in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia.
Biographical Note
Julie Saul (1954-2022) was an American gallerist. She was educated as an art historian and curator. In the early 1980s she and Nancy Lieberman decided to establish a gallery to promote and sell photography. Saul eventually broke off with her own gallery in the 1990s and was known as a major exhibitor and supporter of traditional and avant-garde contemporary photography. In addition to the Gallery, Saul taught history of photography classes and also worked for 20 years on a project to promote the life and legacy of Berthe Weill, an early-20th-century Parisian art dealer.
(Source: New York Times Obituary, viewed 2/14/2022)
Historical Note
The Julie Saul Gallery initially began as Lieberman & Saul Fine Arts in 1984 where Saul and Nancy Lieberman worked as private dealers specializing in contemporary photographic-based art and works on paper. In 1986 they opened their first public space at 155 Spring Street and moved to 560 Broadway where Saul eventually transitioned the gallery to the Julie Saul Gallery in 1990. The Gallery began accumulating a balance of works on paper, collage, sculpture, painting, and video. Their location changed again, moving to 535 West 22nd Street in Chelsea, an area that many SoHo galleries were moving to in the mid-1990s. In addition to solo exhibitions for artists, the Gallery also curated an average of two thematic shows per year, often incorporating an historical component. Examples of these shows include Synapse Between Photography and Sculpture (1992), Richard Artschwager: Photo/Works 1945/1996,and Skin/Deep: A survey of interior imaging from X-Ray to MRI (1999). Artists represented included photographers Sally Gall, Andrew Bush, and Arne Svenson, as well as multimedia artists Richard Artschwager, Sarah Anne Johnson, and Maira Kalman. Saul closed the Gallery in 2019 when she lost her lease.
Arrangement
Material is arranged chronologically, with files grouped by subject.
Scope and Contents
The Julie Saul Gallery Records document a New York City art gallery active during the late 1980s to 2019 that specialized in photography. This collection includes files accumulated by the Gallery on artists they represented including Richard Artschwager, Reinier Gerritsen, Bill Jacobson, Sara Anne Johnson, and Tseng Kwong Chi. Artist files often include press clippings, correspondence, resumes, artwork images, exhibition information, notes, and lists of the artworks and their prices. The collection also contains both chronological and individual Gallery exhibition files. These files typically contain promotional material, press releases, catalogs, correspondence, press clippings, notes, and artists' statements and resumes. Exhibition files containing a significant amount of material include Sally Gall -- Subterranea; Skin/Deep; Uncharted Territory; and Wordplay.
Gallery sales and consignment records range in date from the 1990s to the 2010s, documenting transactions between the gallery owner and purchasers, including other galleries, museums, and private collectors. These records track artwork pricing; the ebb and flow in popularity of artists and their works; and art mediums. The Gallery's payment receipts for individual artists illustrate the gallery/artist relationship in terms of profit-sharing, volume of purchases, and price tracking on individual artists. This collection also contains a small amount of documentation on the establishment of the original gallery with Nancy Lieberman in the 1980s; files accumulated on individual collectors; bills and expense lists; and press clippings regarding Julie Saul's early career and the Gallery.
Notes and copies of readings for photography art classes Saul attended in the 1980s are in this collection, as are notes and syllabi for classes she later taught on the subject. Julie Saul's travel journals date from 2002 to 2016, and include business and personal diary-type entries while visiting various parts of the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. These diaries also contain business contact information and meeting notes. There are also files related to Saul's outside projects during the 2000s-2010s including a Printed Matter portfolio project; research on French art dealer Berthe Weill; and The Color Project in which she partnered with Eileen Cohen.
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Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
This collection is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use materials in the collection in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Julie Saul Gallery Records; MSS 630; box number; folder number or item identifier; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by Linda Saul-Sena in June 2023; the accession number with this gift is 2023.039
Appraisal
The following were removed from the collection: 3 CDs (1 system disk and 2 data disks with duplicate images), invoices containing customer payment information, and duplicates of print material.
About this Guide
Processing Information
At the time of accessioning, materials were rehoused in archival boxes and folders, described on the collection level, and inventoried at the box level. Two cartons of material were transferred in April 2023 directly from the donor location to Polygon for mold remediation and after treatment were delivered to ACM in June 2023.
In 2024, material was placed in acid-free folders and boxes. All 3-ring binders were disassembled and material was removed from their plastic sleeves. Oversized material was unfolded and placed in appropriately-sized housing. Deteriorating photographic slide pages were replaced with archival-quality housing. Two cartons of material that had been treated for mold were reviewed for items too damaged to read/view; those items were removed from the collection, and the remaining material was notated regarding their treatment.
