The Byron Gallery was founded in 1961 by Charles Byron and was located on Madison Avenue, New York, New York in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Byron Gallery exhibited primarily Surrealist

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

 masters, emerging contemporary

Contemporary art

Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...

 painters and sculptors, and the occasional Old Master

Old Master

"Old Master" is a term for a European painter of skill who worked before about 1800, or a painting by such an artist. An "old master print" is an original print made by an artist in the same period...

s and ancient art exhibit. The gallery closed in 1971.

The gallery represented selected artists and also sold work by other artists represented by other galleries or from the secondary market. Artists represented by Byron Gallery included: Herbert Bayer

Herbert Bayer

Herbert Bayer was an Austrian American graphic designer, painter, photographer, sculptor, art director, environmental & interior designer, and architect, who was widely recognized as the last living member of the Bauhaus and was instrumental in the development of the Atlantic Richfield Company's...

, Albert Kotin

Albert Kotin

Albert Kotin belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized across the Atlantic, including Paris...

, Clement Meadmore

Clement Meadmore

Clement Meadmore was an Australian-American sculptor known for massive outdoor steel sculptures.-Biography:...

, Richard Merkin

Richard Merkin

Richard Merkin was an American painter and illustrator.Merkin was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1938, and held degrees from Syracuse University and the Rhode Island School of Design...

, Brian O'Doherty, Hans Richter

Hans Richter

Hans Richter may refer to:*Hans Richter , Austrian conductor*Hans Richter , designer of the Volksbühne in Berlin and villa Heller in Ústí nad Labem...

 and John Vickery

John Vickery

John Estill Vickery is an American stage and film actor known for his work in Babylon 5 and Star Trek. Vickery grew up in Oakland, California. He attended the University of California at Davis, where he pursued a degree in mathematics...

.

Byron Gallery also held group and solo shows featuring artists they represented and outsiders. American Landscapes showcased over 40 American landscape

Landscape art

Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...

 artists in 1964. The Box Show in 1965 featured over 100 artists, including Louise Nevelson, Sol Lewitt

Sol LeWitt

Solomon "Sol" LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism....

, Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...

 and Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

. Warhol made another appearance at the gallery the same year for The Paris Review, which also featured Jim Dine

Jim Dine

Jim Dine is an American pop artist. He is sometimes considered to be a part of the Neo-Dada movement. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, attended Walnut Hills High School, the University of Cincinnati, and received a BFA from Ohio University in 1957. He first earned respect in the art world with...

, Helen Frankenthaler

Helen Frankenthaler

Helen Frankenthaler is an American abstract expressionist painter. She is a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work in six decades she has spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work...

, Robert Indiana

Robert Indiana

Robert Indiana is an American artist associated with the Pop Art movement.-Life and work:Robert Indiana was born Robert Clark in New Castle, Indiana. His family relocated to Indianapolis, where he graduated from Arsenal Technical High School...

, Ellsworth Kelly

Ellsworth Kelly

Ellsworth Kelly is an American painter and sculptor associated with Hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and the Minimalist school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing the simplicity of form found similar to the work of John McLaughlin. Kelly often employs bright colors to...

, among others. The gallery also featured non-contemporary exhibitions including two Pre-Columbian

Pre-Columbian

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...

 shows in 1967 400 Years of Italian Art: Florentine Relief Fund Art Show and Greek Gold Exhibition from 1967-1968. The gallery closed in 1971 and Charles Byron became a private dealer. In 1970 the gallery exhibited over 60 works by Max Ernst

Max Ernst

Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...

, featuring drawings, collages and sculptures from 1917 to 1967.

Notable exhibitions

400 years of Italian Art was a benefit for for the people and areas of Florence, Italy affected by the 1966 Flood of the River Arno. A committee was formed for the benefit and featured representatives from Italy and the United States from the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

, Italian Consul General

Consul (representative)

The political title Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the peoples of the two countries...

 of New York, the Italy-America Society, and private citizens. The exhibition was curated by Paul Magriel and was installed by Gene Moore of Tiffany & Company. The show featured a brief survey of 15th to 18th-century Italian decorative arts including ceramics, jewelry, drawings and sculptures loaned by galleries and collectors from New York including Benjamin Sonnenberg

Benjamin Sonnenberg

Benjamin Sonnenberg was a Russian-born American press agent who represented celebrities and major corporations, who was best known for the lavish entertaining he did for his clients and other notables at his Manhattan townhouse located at 19 Gramercy Park South.Sonnenberg was born in...

, Russell Lynes

Russell Lynes

Russell Lynes December 2, 1910 – September 14, 1991) was an American art historian, photographer, author and managing editor of Harper's Magazine....

, the wife of James Rorimer

James Rorimer

James J. Rorimer , was an American museum curator and the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.-Biography:On his graduation from Harvard University in 1927, James Rorimer was immediately hired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning a career with the Met that would last his entire...

, Richard Sisson

Richard Sisson

Richard Sisson is a pianist and composer. As well as concert works, he has composed extensively for the theatre. He is also part of the cabaret double-act Kit and The Widow alongside Kit Hesketh-Harvey.- External links :* * *...

 and others.

Byron Gallery records

In 1998 owner Charles Byron moved out of his home and donated his papers pertaining to the Byron Gallery to the Archives of American Art

Archives of American Art

The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 16 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washington, D.C...

. Byron's papers were meticulously kept starting in 1962. He documented every exhibition with photographs of objects and the installations. These photographic documentations were then placed in albums along with details including catalogues, gallery announcements, attendee lists, checklists, advertisements and reviews, creating what the Archives describes as a mini-history for each exhibition. More than 40 albums make up the collection.