Each showplace has a personality
By Tova Navarra
November 3, 1989

Two of the snootiest-sounding words in the English language are these: art gallery. The very core of an art gallery, after all, is to create a select inventory of artworks in as authoritative an “art” atmosphere as possible. Usually, a gallery owner champions the artists whose works he or she personally likes and thinks collectors will spend money on.
Just stroll the avenues Madison and Park of the streets of SoHo and feel the authority New York City galleries have culled for themselves over time. With no one correct way of being an art gallery, their personalities are as varied as Baskin Robbins ice-cream flavors. Some, such as O.K. Harris on West Broadway, have museumlike qualities; others, such as Bateau Lavoir in SoHo, pack their wallop into mere cubicles. A good gallery, if there is any kind of gauge, convinces collectors and browsers alike that upon its walls is art worth seeing.
Enter New Jersey for more art worth seeing, and for galleries staunchly holding their own outside the international punch that will ever be New York’s. Of course, the concentration of galleries doesn’t match the city’s, but after a survey of several galleries, it is clear that New Jersey gallery owners want to do this work and do it well on the other side of the Holland and Lincoln tunnels. Traffic may lighten up, but galleries’ exhibition spaces and chosen artworks run the same personality gamut as those in New York.
Brian Reddy’s Gallery Jupiter in Little Silver has a traditional personality that has no trouble showcasing modern art. In a 200-year-old house of great character on Church Street, the gallery’s neutral gray walls and carpeting present each piece “on its own terms,” Reddy said.
“Art is not just decorative,” he said. “Most galleries, including the most renowned, cannot afford to handle art they don’t believe is going to sell. Some go to the lowest common denominator and hang anything in hopes people will buy on a picture-to-picture, impulse basis. More prestigious galleries depend on the phenomenon of fine-art collecting. They don’t so much buy a picture as they buy the work of a particular artist.”
Because Reddy, who studied architecture and has long admired fine arts, doesn’t have to pay New York rents and boosts his business by a custom-framing service, he’s able to restrict the work he sells to that of artists he prefers to represent.
William Galetta, curator of the Smith-Galetta Galleries in The Proprietary House in Perth Amboy, bills his as a “new masters” gallery. “We’re enormously proud of this place,” Galetta said. “The Proprietary House was built in the 1760s and was the official residence of Benjamin Franklin’s son, William, who was New Jersey’s last royal governor. Gene (director Eugene S. Smith) and I tried to preserve the house’s original splendor.”
Caught serendipitously in Colonial American history, theirs is one of the most beautiful art galleries in the Garden State. While the rest of the palatial house’s allotted spaces to architects’ offices and other businesses are still under construction, Galetta and Smith’s obvious respect for art and its setting shines dramatically. Their “stable” includes aptly dubbed “new masters” Kenneth Hari and Danuta Wyszynski, both of Perth Amboy, and Jose C. Yap Jr. and Branko Paradis, both of New York.
Ample and elegant space such as Smith-Galetta’s would be out of financial reach for many an ambitious, art-loving gallery owner if it were in New York. “To run a gallery successfully in New York, one has to lay out at least $1 million cash up front,” said Reddy. “Galleries there typically are either operated or backed by very wealthy people.”
As far as Judy Borell, owner of Jentra Fine Art Gallery in Freehold Township, is concerned, however, a New York location isn’t pivotal for success.
“If we were a New York gallery, we could carve a definite niche,” Ms. Borell said. “You wouldn’t find the mix we have. We cater to wants and needs of our clientele on every level. This area has knowledgeable people who’ll back their knowledge by purchasing art. I can’t tell you how many people come in here and say, ‘What are you doing here? You belong in New York.’ We’re really filling a gap. And I wouldn’t go to a mall, either, because I don’t feel we could give the highly personalized service we give.”
Lining Jentra’s walls – sort of a railroad-car effect – are pieces by artists including Jacob Landau of Roosevelt and Ocean Grove artist James Yarosh, and a happy clutter of fine crafts, glass and jewelry. This gallery’s atmosphere amiably combines haymish with haute.
A similar, if a bit more spacious, ambience exists at Evergreen Gallery in Spring Lake. Owner Joan Norkus said, “Competition with New York is an issue: I’d like to be compared favorably to a New York gallery. Some of the same art I show here is also found there. My main inspiration is the way museums present their shows, and with each of the ones I present, I learn what I’d like to do better the next time.”
Galleries including Art Forms in Red Bank, Princeton Gallery of Fine Art in Princeton and Gallery EKO in Allenhurst stick mainly with paintings and sculpture and present them with room to “float,” that is, enough separate space for each piece, with as little as possible in the realm of peripheral vision, so the viewer can concentrate on one thing at a time.
Robert Baum, owner of The Robert Baum Gallery in Sea Girt (also in a renovated old building), said he believes art should deal with essentials. “Overstated art bothers me,” Baum said. “I guess that’s why I like the Impressionists, and artists such as Steve Kuzma of Hoboken, who is evolving into abstract art with strong paintings, New York sculptor Michael Malpass and half a dozen other artists.
“What’s most important to me is the aesthetic satisfaction that people can see really great art,” he said, “as long as it isn’t too diverse so it confuses people. People get angry when you confuse them. I like to use the word ‘legitimate’ for art that is genuine and emotional.”
Baum added that, while areas known as art centers are on the rise (he cited the Main Line in Pennsylvania as one), he thinks New Jersey galleries have a long way to go in maintaining a level of quality and presentation.
“One art gallery I know of uses white pegboard and bulb lights, which is passé,” he said. “And displays of art supplies inexpensive prints and frames lumped in with fine art hurts the atmosphere.” Despite the obstacles, art dealers everywhere help deserving artists to become known. For that aspect of the art business alone, the art community should be grateful.