User:Sam Thurston/Artists' Choice Museum

Artists’ Choice Museum - New York City

Started in 1976  by many of the same younger artists who were active in the Alliance of Figurative Artists and the Figurative Coops. First exhibition, a survey of 146 contemporary figurative artists was “selected and organized by the artists of the Green Mountain, Bowery, Prince Street and First Street Galleries” - although it was a broad survey and did not exhibit just artists from those galleries. After the first show older artists were brought into its structure. Other group shows followed in clusters of galleries on 57th street and in museums: “Benefit Exhibit” in 1979 (40 artists), “Younger Artists: Benefit Exhibit” in 1980 (61 artists),“Intimate Visions” in 1982 (14 artists), “Narrative Sculpture” in 1982 (12 Artists),  “Painted Light” in 1983 (90 artists) and “Bodies and Souls” in 1983 (156 artists) to name some. By 1980 The Museum was publishing a bimonthly newsletter and by 1982 a magazine. By 1984 the Museum finally had a home; a building on West Broadway. This space only lasted until 1985 when the organization ceased to exist.

Artists’ Choice Catalogue- December, 1976. Bodies and Souls Catalog, 1983. The Artists’ Choice Museum: The First Eight Years-Catalogue 1984.