6 - The “gatekeepers” – gallery owners

Summary

In the system which supports figurative painters the function of the “gatekeepers” is supposed to be fulfilled by the owners of the private galleries. They enable painters to exhibit their works and reach the public, they buy these works themselves and help in selling them to others. In many cases well-established galleries aid a painter to get a show in private galleries and museums abroad and in different ways contribute to his gaining publicity.

Between 1979 and 1980 the Israeli Association of Gallery Owners listed sixty-four galleries. This number represents the result of a very rapid growth in this sector during the preceding twenty years. In the 1940s there were only seven galleries in Israel and they did not exist simultaneously. Fifteen galleries were active in the 1950s, forty-eight in the 1960s and 128 in the 1970s. It is the overall number of the galleries active in a given decade which is taken into account here, not only those which existed simultaneously: some were closed during the period, others opened, still others continued their existence which started in an earlier decade.

The galleries, at a glance, can be divided into three categories: galleries with unambivalently figurative preferences, which represent the decisive majority of all private galleries; galleries with unambivalently avant-gardist preferences; and galleries with ambivalent preferences, which can be characterized as semi-avant-gardist. Avant-gardist and semi-avant-gardist galleries are but a small minority in the overall population.