Hollis Taggart

September is busy for the art world in New York. Hometown galleries open their most important shows, and a cluster of fairs bring together collectors and galleries from around the world. The Armory Show, which gathers more than 200 exhibitors from 35 countries at the Javits Center from Sept. 5-7, is the largest, and it remains an unparalleled opportunity to sample the global art scene.

Brooklyn-based abstract artist Dana James has honed a distinct style of abstract painting, combining patches of pastel colors with bare areas that reveal raw canvas. To these she adds intuitive, bold brushstrokes that enliven her compositions. James at times uses multiple canvases, visibly stitching them together à la Frankenstein.

One morning in Denver as artist John Knuth was getting his exhibition ready at the David B Smith Gallery, the police knocked on the door to check he wasn’t housing a dead body. “They said, ‘We’ve got a report of a lot of flies in here. Is there a dead body or anything rotting?’” Knuth recalls to the Guardian over Zoom.

Before Sol Lewitt became a household name, he was a guard at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). So was Ralph Iwamoto. In the late 1950s, the museum’s staff included a cluster of artists who would go on to become stars: Lewitt, Dan Flavin, Robert Mangold, and Robert Ryman. Iwamoto was right there with them, sharing ideas and steadily building a visual language of his own. And yet, while their names were canonized, his slipped from public view.

New York’s Hotel Chelsea is no stranger to the art world. From Patti Smith to Jackson Pollock, countless creatives have visited and taken up residence in the bohemian establishment throughout its colourful history, sometimes paying their bills with art. This month, the hotel is opening Teruko, a Japanese restaurant from the chef Tadashi Ono inspired by one of its former residents: the late artist Teruko Yokoi.

Teruko Yokoi, an undersung Japanese-born Swiss abstract painter who spent much of her career in the US, was known for her work combining modern American abstraction with traditional Japanese aesthetics. This exhibition, on view May 1 through June 14, spans the artist’s career from the late ’50s to the early 2000s, focusing specifically on the Japanese dance-drama Noh as an influence on Yokoi’s practice.

The Japanese Swiss artist Teruko Yokoi lived and worked in New York’s Hotel Chelsea for three productive years until she moved out in 1961. She never returned, says her daughter, Kayo, who has managed her estate since her death in 2020. But next month, the abstract painter and collage artist will have a homecoming of sorts with the opening of a Japanese restaurant named after her and an exhibition at the nearby Hollis Taggart gallery.

Hollis Taggart is thrilled to announce its induction into the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA)’s incoming class of 2025. The gallery is honored to join the nation's leading professional association of fine art dealers along with 11 other illustrious galleries. Thank you to the ADAA members for your support.