Art dealer: noun, a person who buys and sells works of art. (Collins English Dictionary, 2022)

Since 2015 I have collected names of women art dealers (mostly in America), with a general view on the 1900–1950 period and a focus on the 1930s.

I would love to hear from you if you have information on the names highlighted and/or if you are undertaking your own research on this dealer and their gallery/ activities. From January 2022 I began adding women dealers from other countries.

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Notes: 

1. Most of these dealers, but not all, operated galleries or initiatives under their own name. Some were assistants in a gallery, or freelance "curators". 

2. In this list, for brevity, I have omitted gallery names. 

3. The below list concentrates on the period 1900–1950 and does not reflect the complete list I am working on.

4. The word "dealer" is an umbrella term. Early dealers were often called gallerists, managers, directors and curators.

For the most part I do not include the names of women collectors who also may have infrequently consigned or sold work to another dealer or customer; the main exception is Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) who I include in the below list as a point of clarification (and also because she often sold works she no longer wanted). 

With the exception of Stein, for the purposes of this project, I consider a dealer to be anybody who organized an exhibition—or ran an enterprise—with the express aim to "sell" art. (Dealer is distinct to Agent, though arguably agents such as Cassatt and Tyson Hallowell were proto-dealers). I have also included the names of women who founded Societies or Associations (Wheeler) or Expositions (Duane Gillespie), wherein art was sold, even if these societies looked and operated differently to our present-day concept of a dealer-gallery system.

If you believe more names should be added to this list, please navigate to the contact page to get in touch. 

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Country designates where the dealer predominantly (and/or latterly) operated; not necessarily their nationality. Many Europeans emigrated to the US between 1900 and 1950; and some dealers, like the American, Peggy Guggenheim, established galleries (however short lived) in France, UK, and US.

The following people are listed as German though they operated elsewhere: Käte Perls, operated in Berlin, Paris, and New York; Grete Ring operated in Berlin, then London; Marianne Breslauer Feilchenfeldt operated in Berlin, Amsterdam and Zurich. 

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Black = American

Blue = French

Red = German, (German-Swiss)

Green= UK

Pink = Netherlands, Scandinavia

Orange = Italy