Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Thesis - Restricted Access (SIA Only)

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Art Business

First Advisor

Matthew Nichols

Second Advisor

Judith Prowda

Abstract

The transformation of SoHo during the 1970s stands as one of the most significant episodes in New York’s cultural history (Zukin, 1982), not only because the district became an international centre of artistic experimentation, but also because the period witnessed a profound reconfiguration of the modes through which contemporary art was produced, mediated and legitimised. Within this process, women gallerists played a decisive role, even if that importance has been concealed within dominant historical narratives. Such omissions shape not only our understanding of the neighbourhood as a cultural ecosystem but also the ways in which gender operated as an organising principle of artistic life and its institutions during a moment of far-reaching social transformation. This dissertation begins from the idea that the presence of women heading galleries in SoHo cannot be understood simply as the natural consequence of urban openness (Pollock, 1988), nor as a phenomenon linked exclusively to the rise of feminism. On the contrary, it argues that their emergence was the result of a complex intersection of economic transformations, spatial reconfigurations, cultural shifts and new political subjectivities. Analysing this intersection makes it possible not only to recover historically overlooked figures but also to reconsider the categories through which the development of contemporary art and its institutions has traditionally been understood. The motivation for studying these gallerists arises from the identification of a persistent gap in the literature on the neighbourhood. While the roles of male artists, critics and dealers have been extensively documented, the women who organised exhibitions, sustained artistic communities and invented new forms of cultural mediation have received secondary or fragmented treatment (Reilly, 2018). Even studies addressing the expansion of the art market or the dynamics of gentrification often reproduce interpretative frameworks that fail to integrate their work adequately or situate it solely within the margins of feminist art history rather than within the broader institutional and economic transformations of the art world. This dissertation therefore seeks to redress this imbalance by placing women dealers at the centre of inquiry. The general aim of the research is to understand how women gallerists in SoHo were able to intervene decisively in an artistic landscape marked by tension between informality and professionalisation, between urban precariousness and aesthetic experimentation, and between consolidated patriarchal structures and emerging forms of female agency (Nochlin, 2018). From this overarching aim follow three specific objectives: to examine the urban, economic and social conditions that made their emergence possible; to analyse the professional, curatorial and relational strategies they developed; and to evaluate the mechanisms that have contributed to their underrepresentation in historical accounts of the period. To address these questions, the study employs an interdisciplinary approach that draws on art history, urban sociology, feminist theory and cultural analysis. This approach is key for the research, since the emergence of these gallerists did not happen solely from aesthetic frameworks or market dynamics (Bryan-Wilson, 2009), but is the result of a broader context in which material, institutional, and symbolic factors converge. The sources used include theoretical texts, urban studies, recent scholarship on SoHo, period publications, interviews, archival materials and exhibition catalogues, allowing for the reconstruction of structural dynamics as well as of the specific practices of the gallerists examined. The structure of the dissertation reflects the need to articulate the various levels at which the neighbourhood’s transformation occurred and the role played by the women within it (Rachleff, 2017). The first chapter outlines the purpose of the study and defines the conceptual and methodological tools guiding the analysis. The second chapter develops the theoretical framework through which the interventions of the gallerists are interpreted, addressing feminist debates on visibility, cultural authority and mediation, and showing how these debates allow for a rethinking of traditional notions of artistic legitimacy. The third chapter examines the cases of Paula Cooper, Holly Solomon and Ileana Sonnabend, demonstrating how their practices constituted distinct models of intervention within the artistic field and expanded the boundaries of what the figure of the dealer could be. The fourth chapter situates these interventions within the broader urban reorganisation of SoHo, analysing how spatial, economic and symbolic shifts both enabled and conditioned the work of these women. The main contribution of this dissertation lies in showing that the cultural history of SoHo cannot be understood without acknowledging the decisive role of women gallerists, who were central to the redefinition of artistic mediation, the consolidation of new institutional networks and the creation of spaces for practices that exceeded traditional limits of production and exhibition. When their work is situated as part of the structural transformations of the period, this research not only fulfils a reparative function by reinstating their importance and presence, but also enables a discussion and reconsideration of how the art system operates and how dominant narratives are constructed. Studying the interventions of these women entails questioning the boundaries of art history as it has been written and expanding the conceptual field through which cultural change is analysed. This dissertation contends that understanding SoHo requires recognising that the renewal of contemporary art in the 1970s was also a renewal of the forms of mediation and of the subjects who enacted them, and that women gallerists were indispensable protagonists of that transformation.

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