The Galerie St. Etienne, founded in 1939, is the oldest gallery in the United States specializing in Austrian and German Expressionism. The gallery introduced major artists like Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele to this country, and continues to focus on their work, as well as on the work of artists such as Lovis Corinth, Käthe Kollwitz, Alfred Kubin and Paula Modersohn-Becker. St. Etienne stocks the nation's largest inventory of Kollwitz prints, a listing of which is available free of charge upon request. The gallery also deals in a broader, more general way with other Austrian and German modernists from the turn of the century through the 1920s. A strong bent for humanistic, socially oriented work characterizes the gallery's engagement with the art of Weimar-era Germany, and is carried forth in its representation of the contemporary artist Sue Coe. The Galerie St. Etienne has become known for its scholarly expertise, having curated or co-curated numerous museum exhibitions and produced many authoritative books, including the Schiele catalogue raisonné.

Historically, the pioneers of modernism were always interested in the work of unschooled artists, and the Galerie St. Etienne has maintained this connection. The gallery specializes in the classic American folk painters of the 1930s through '50s, including Morris Hirshfield, John Kane, Grandma Moses and Horace Pippin, as well as more recent self-taught artists such as Henry Darger, Michel Nedjar and the Gugging group. The gallery's founder, Otto Kallir, "discovered" Grandma Moses, and the gallery represents her estate as well as the Kane estate. The gallery also deals in a variety of European and Haitian self-taught art, and in nineteenth-century American folk art.

The Galerie St. Etienne mounts five exhibitions a year, each of which is accompanied by a scholarly essay and detailed checklist. These materials are provided free upon request, as are comprehensive listings of available inventory and publications. As inventory can change rapidly, not all the items on our web site may currently be available. However, all the illustrated pieces are typical of the work we handle, and we may well have additional unillustrated works by the same artists. Please phone, write, fax or email for further information.