Frank Bernarducci, a longtime 57th street art dealer and champion of realist painters, is pleased to announce that he will open a project space in Chelsea on October 3. Bernarducci Gallery will exhibit paintings by his gallery artists, the leading painters of a new movement, Precisionist Realism. The Gallery will represent a selection of emerging artists as well as many of the established painters with whom Bernarducci has a long relationship. The premier exhibition at the project space will include works by Antonio Cazorla, Ester Curini, Hubert DeLartigue, Max Ferguson, Gus Heinze, Park Hyung Jin, Cheryl Kelley, Sylvia Maier, Daniel Massad, Sharon Moody, Adam Normandin, Lee Price, Tjalf Sparnaay, and Nathan Walsh, along with photographs by Sally Davies and Eric Meola.
In January, Bernarducci will roll out his full program at a new, high profile ground floor space in Chelsea. There, he will he exhibit a full roster of artists, including many whom he showed as co-owner and founder of Bernarducci Meisel Gallery.
"I am looking forward to launching this next step of my career, and to creating a high profile environment to more prominently exhibit the artists I have been championing for decades,” said Frank Bernarducci. “Chelsea continues to be a burgeoning center of the contemporary art world, and I’m excited to create a space for these new precisionist realist painters in such a vibrant part of the city. The artists we are working with are at the pinnacle of their artistic output and this move will maximize our ability to exhibit these extraordinary, highly detailed works to a wider audience."
Bernarducci began his career as an art dealer, following in his father's footsteps. Frank Bernarducci Sr., a painter and student of the Hans Hofmann School of Art, was a founding member of the Phoenix Gallery, which was established in 1958 at the height of the abstract expressionist movement, known as The New York School. In 1984, Frank, Jr opened the Frank Bernarducci Gallery across the street from Andy Warhol’s Union Square factory, exhibiting such artists as David Wojnarowicz, Martin Wong, Daze, Rick Prol, Futura, Ronnie Cutrone, Rammelzee, and Keith Haring. He exhibited work not only in the gallery setting, but at nightclubs as well, including Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager’s Palladium.
As his program evolved, Bernarducci began to exhibit more contemporary realism and mounted solo shows by Stephen Hannock and Robert Terry, as well as survey exhibitions that included work by prominent realists such as Martha Diamond, Jane Freilicher, and Craig Mcpherson among others. By the late 1980s, Bernarducci moved the operation to Soho on Broadway and Prince Street where he continued showing primarily emerging artists. Throughout the 1990s Bernarducci worked as director of two important realist galleries – Tastischeff and Co and Fischbach Gallery, both on 57th street. There he represented the paintings of Jane Wilson, Leigh Behnke, Lois Dodd and many others.
In 2000 Bernarducci opened Bernarducci Meisel Gallery with Louis Meisel, where they worked to establish and elevate the careers of numerous photorealist artists, and others painters including the recent paintings of Mel Ramos, placing these works in important public and private collections. Bernarducci Gallery will continue Bernarducci’s longstanding interest in realism specifically highly detailed precisionist painting, and in bringing both emerging and established artists’ works into the mainstream.
