The Nesta Revival: A Gallery Pioneer back at Jefferson Place, The Washington Post, Paul Richard, 1986
Photo © Carol Harrison
Archive Post: 3/26/2023
Photographs from the Rockne Krebs photo archive, and by Carol Harrison, accompanying a 1986 article by Paul Richard for The Washington Post about Nesta Dorrance and the Jefferson Place Gallery.
The Nesta Revival: A Gallery Pioneer back at Jefferson Place,
The Washington Post, Paul Richard, 1986
The artists!
Exhibition opening night
The Jefferson Place Gallery Reunion, Washington, DC, 1986
Photo © Carol Harrison
Back: Ed Zerne, Sam Gilliam, Eric Rudd, Rockne Krebs
Middle: John Wise, Carroll Sockwell, V.V. Rankin, Nesta Dorrance, Alice Denney, Franklin White
Front: Ben Abramowitz, Hilda Thorpe, David Moy
Spectral Drawings, 1971
“What artists she discovered.
Though the building where she showed
their work
– at 2144 P Street NW –
was demolished long ago,
it has not been forgotten.
Remember how the front
stairs creaked?"
Paul Richard
Spectral Drawings, 1971
“It is not just the art – by Gene Davis, Tom Downing, Howard Mehring, Sam Gilliam and Rockne Krebs – that gives the Jefferson Place Gallery show now at 406 Seventh St. NW particular importance. Nor is it just the sight, there behind the counter, of dealer Nesta Dorrance selling art again.”
Paul Richard
Paul Richard, Art Critic, The Washington Post. Photo © Carol Harrison
“The rooms upstairs were tiny – some were literally cubicles, about as high as they were wide – but they made new art look grand.”
Paul Richard
Lorine Krebs, Rockne’s mother, in a small room in the Jefferson Place Gallery for his first solo exhibition in 1967.
She is photographed with Number IV by Rockne, 1966, plexiglass, aluminum and Formica.
“What made the Jefferson Place unusual,” says Krebs, who had seven exhibitions there, “is the consideration she extended to her artists. It had been founded as a cooperative, and she ran it that way. She never told you that your work was too experimental. She focused on the artists of this city – and she stuck with them.”
Rockne Krebs
Paul Richard, The Washington Post, The Nesta Revival: A Gallery Pioneer, Back at Jefferson Place, 1986.
"The first time Krebs installed his laser sculptures there his mirrors made the walls dissolve so that the viewer felt as if he were standing on a pinnacle, among endless, floating lines of light, somewhere in outer space.” Paul Richard
Sculpture Minus Object, 1969, installed in the Jefferson Place Gallery for Rockne Krebs: Energy Structures. Artforum ad.
"The first time Krebs installed his laser sculptures there his mirrors made the walls dissolve so that the viewer felt as if he were standing on a pinnacle, among endless, floating lines of light, somewhere in outer space.” Paul Richard
