Stein opened her eponymous Upper East Side gallery in 1963 (Google Maps)
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A New Yorker who shared her name with one of history’s most celebrated cultural figures spent six decades building a legacy entirely her own — as the founder of one of the Upper East Side’s most uncompromising galleries and a champion of artists the mainstream art world preferred to ignore.
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Gertrude Stein, who opened Gallery: Gertrude Stein at 24 East 81st Street in 1963, died on Feb. 27 at the age of 98, according to her obituary on Legacy.com.Stein’s gallery became a home for the NO!art movement, a postwar artistic rebellion led by Boris Lurie (1924–2008), a Holocaust survivor whose work confronted consumerism, nuclear proliferation, and historical amnesia. Her inaugural exhibition featured Lurie’s Railroad to America (1963), a collage juxtaposing pin-up imagery with photographs of Nazi concentration camps. A year later, she presented what became known as the “Shit Show” — 21 plaster and acrylic sculptures resembling piles of excrement, offered as a protest against the commercialization of art at the height of the Pop Art era.
Over five decades, the gallery exhibited work by luminaries including Balthus, Hans Bellmer, Wolf Vostell, and Salvador Dalí. In 1963, Stein also mounted Yayoi Kusama’s first U.S. installation show, Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show, helping to launch the artist’s now-iconic career in America.
Born in Brooklyn in 1927, Stein graduated from the City College of New York with a degree in art and literature and went on to study at the Art Students’ League and the New School for Social Research. Before becoming an art dealer, she served as program director of the New York City Department of Welfare, developing arts initiatives and social programs for senior citizens. She was a member of the Appraisers Association of America from 1962 to 1997 and was widely regarded as an expert in postwar art.
After Lurie’s death in 2008, Stein established the Boris Lurie Art Foundation, serving as its president and dedicating her final years to preserving his work and the broader NO!art legacy. The foundation shared news of her passing on Instagram, along with a longer remembrance on its website.
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Anthony Williams, chair of the foundation, remembered her as “a force of nature” with “more energy than anyone could imagine” and “a brilliant eye for discovering, evaluating and supporting new artists.”She is survived by her son, Claude Ethe, and was predeceased by her son Andrew Ethe.
A memorial exhibition honoring Stein and her gallery will open at Westwood Gallery on the Lower East Side on March 26 and run through May 6.
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