Exhibitions

WINTER 2023 — JULY 27, 2024
Dorothy Koppelmanpaintings, prints, drawings 
An exhibition honoring the life and work of Dorothy Koppelman—founding director, artist, Aesthetic Realism consultant, one of the most important women in cultural history. Gallery closed during August 2024.

JUN 2017 — DEC 2018
The Value of Objects: Double Prints by Dorothy & Chaim Koppelman

“For many years, two important American artists—Aesthetic Realism consultants Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman, husband and wife—made etchings that arose from their looking together at the same objects: for instance, a tomato, a row of bottles, a coat, a water tower….” more

Exhibition at Terrain Gallery, Surface to Begin With

DEC 2011 – NOV  2012
Surface to Begin With
17 Contemporary Artists
In each of these drawings, prints, watercolors, pastels, and paintings, surface and depth are boldly, subtly made one.

MAR 31 – NOV 12, 2011
This Great, Diverse City—How Should We See It?
Twenty photographers whose images capture the rich diversity of people, cultures, neighborhoods, architecture, and feelings in New York….Eli Siegel said in his talk What of New York and Poetry?: “You can use a point to get to the whole world, and New York is a good place to begin to be fair to reality as such.”

Richard Sloat, "Forest Light," painting

OCT 28, 2010 – MAR 19, 2011
Painting Matters
Some of the authentic painting of our time—with comment by the artists and others about the great reason why Painting Matters: “In art, what the eye and self do is for the honor and full truth of reality; in what isn’t art, the eye can change reality out of fear, and in a manner dishonoring it,” Eli Siegel wrote.

MAY 27 – OCT 15, 2010
Chaim Koppelman (1920 – 2009): A Memorial Exhibition
Prints, Paintings, Pastels, Sculpture, with critical comment

“He was brilliant, both in printmaking and painting…. There was this profundity in him, and this sense of humanity. And it was developed through Aesthetic Realism. He was a vital force in the art community for many years.” – Will Barnet, Artist

See more works by Chaim Koppelman on The Art of the Print website.

Derek Reist, "Flag," painting

SEPT 17, 2009 – JAN 2010
Surface & Depth—Contemporary Paintings
Seven contemporary artists, all of whom explore, in different, imaginative ways, opposites central to the painter’s art: Surface and Depth. And the artists comment on their work in relation to the landmark question about these opposites from Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites? by Eli Siegel.

Stephen A. Fredericks, "Heather, Summer," soft ground etching with surface roll

FEB – APR 2010
Surface & Depth:
Part Two—Works On Paper
Part One of this exhibition explored the dramatic relation of Surface & Depth in the art of painting. We now show how these opposites are boldly, subtly made one in contemporary drawings, prints, watercolors, and pastels by eleven artists.

Terrain Gallery Announcement for The Drama in Things

MAR 26 – AUG 2009
The Drama in Things: 3 Photographers
Steve Poleskie’s
rich still lifes of daily objects, captivating in brilliant sunlight & deep shadow; Perry Hall’s acute observations of city buildings, objects, and happenings, where sharpness & softness mingle in many and surprising ways; and the diverse work of Amy Dienes, from an intimate portrait of the heart of a flower, to an awesome panoply of clouds.”—Carrie Wilson

Top of Chrysler Building, photo by Chris in Philly-flickr

DEC 13, 2008 – MAR 14, 2009
Architecture and You:
The Opposites in New York City Landmarks & Our Lives!

First shown at Flushing Library, features photographs of many beloved New York landmarks, with comments from the popular series of talks based on Aesthetic Realism by Anthony Romeo, Dale Laurin, John Stern, Carrie Wilson, and Vincent DiPietro.

William Behnken, "Going Home," aquatint

APR – NOV 15, 2008
The Print & Your Self
Work—innovative and sincere—by eight contemporary printmakers. Surface and  depth, dark and light, fact and imagination are brought together with subtlety and surprise in every beautiful print. And we can learn about these and other opposites in people, nations, ourselves, through the printmaker’s art!

Dorothy Koppelman, "Proud and Humble," pastel

SEPT 12, 2007 – APR 2008
Line, Shape, Color: The Artistic & Human Drama
Ten artists in various styles and media—all showing the meaning of these great sentences from Eli Siegel’s The Opposites Theory: “Shapes widen and narrow; come to a point and curve; rise, fall—and these things we do too. The drama of colors and shapes and lines is humanity’s drama.”

Len Bernstein, "Discarded Automobiles," color photograph

MAR 24 – SEPT 6, 2007
Emotion — in Black & White and Color: 15 Photographers
“The purpose of photography is to create an emotion about the world through what has been carefully seen and selected.” —Eli Siegel, Afternoon Regard For Photography. What makes a classic black & white or the latest digital color photograph stir us? 

Richard Anuszkiewicz

MAY 7 – SEPT 2005
Terrain Gallery 50th Anniversary Exhibition
“In 1955 The Terrain Gallery opened with the extravagant idea that 1) beauty could not only be talked about but defined; 2) that all the arts had something in common; 3) that art and life were integrally related. All this was in the great philosophy of Aesthetic Realism as we had studied it with its founder, critic and poet Eli Siegel.” — Dorothy Koppelman, Founding Director, from the announcement

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