Several EVG readers (including Sheila Meyer and Ryan) shared this news... Jerry's New York Central, the art-supply store at 111 Fourth Ave. between 11th Street and 12th Street, is closing.
The shop sent out postcards last week about the closing sale... the info is now posted on their website...
No word on the reasons for the closure at the moment. We reached out to the store and home office for more info.
This location was an offshoot of Jerry's Artarama, a 15-store art-supply chain headquartered in Raleigh, N.C. Jerry's opened on Fourth Avenue in late 2013, taking over the space from Utrecht Art Supplies (now Blick), who moved into a new store on 13th Street between University and Fifth Avenue. (As reported in October 2013, Jerry's signed a 10-year lease for 4,452 square feet of ground floor space. Asking rent for the deal was $125 per square foot, per a release announcing the deal.)
As New York Central Art Supply was preparing to close at 62 Third Ave. in 2016 after nearly 111 years of business, Doug Steinberg worked with David and Ira Goldstein, who own Jerry's, to acquire the remaining paper inventory of the store.
With Jerry's closing this spring, the Blick outposts at 1-5 Bond St. and 21 E. 13th St. will be the remaining art-supplies stores in the immediate area.
34 comments:
Who needs art supplies when you make everything on your computer? We don't need tape supply houses, nor books, nor anything permanent and of quality.
This is sad. I love that place.
What is happening to our city? Fuck. This is depressing.
How can they not make a go of it in that location, with students from NYU, SVA, and Cooper Union all needing art supplies? I really, really don't understand this.
But I *do* understand that with the loss of New York Central and now Jerry's, we might as well put up a sign that says "artists not welcome, get outta here". The bro's have won; they own the neighborhood and they only need BEER. Look around this area and you will see MANY places that sell alcohol ... and soon, NO places that sell art supplies. This is how civilization goes backwards.
This is devastating. I love Jerrys, and will always walk the extra blocks to go there over Bliq or any brand name. People are friendly, and great deals on canvas always. This will be a gaping hole in our community.
BTW, I got their "closing" postcard in the mail on Feb. 7th, and phoned the store late that afternoon. I was told by the employee who answered the phone that the EMPLOYEES had only just found out about the closing on Feb. 7th - so management blindsided them too, it seems.
Roy Lichtenstein's workshop was around the block. Of course, that' was gone long ago. Now few artists. More drunks.
Yes the Bros have won. Again. Woo!
Soho art material at 3 Wooster and Da Vinci at 132 West 21st off 6th.
@Cmartyy. Few Artists. More Drunks. That sums it up nicely. A lot of painters were drunks too, or at least, they drank a lot and believed that it helped their art, even when it did not, Many of the Abstract Expressionisists like Willem De Kooning and Jackson Pollock hung out for drinks at the Cedar on University. Then the workaholics of the Pop art movement came along and artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstiein didn’t drink as much.
That was back when we still had art movements, which you could easily define, which pushed the boundaries of art. Today you’d be hard pressed to name a singular art movement of the 21st century (digital isn’t a movement, it’s a medium) because as many have said before me, art is dead. Today’s biggest artists are human brands, corporate lobby artists like Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. They get their art supplies from Home Depot, Italian quarries and steel mills.
So who needs art stores like Pearl Paint and Sam Flax and Utrecht when there is no art movement? Ask anyone who their favorite artist is, and chances are good that person is dead. More bars, more Bros, less art.
In recent years we have lost not only art supply stores, but other suppliers of high quality goods and equipment for professional makers.
Some have moved out of Manhattan, others have closed forever.
Metaliferous- jewelry supplies
Talas - book making supplies
Kaufman- leather supplies
City Quilter-quilting supplies
Numerous high end fabric stores
If you are not a digital artist or making art with 3 D printers, you’re relegated to buying online or at hobby shops like Michael’s.
Heartbreaking.
A few things about this
1) no doubt this sucks - the world and city needs more artists.
2) this isn’t an “artist vs bros” issue - this is an “Amazon vs shop local” issue. Just too easy to get most of this stuff online these days at lower prices. And artists like good deals, unsurprisingly.
3) how come no one who commented here is commenting on the post about the inaugural Basquiat exhibit at the new Brant Art Foundation on East 6th Street? If you’re gonna complain about shit, you need to celebrate the wins louder.
Have a nice day
What about the street art movement?
This is not about Amazon versus the world. This article provides some illumination:
https://boingboing.net/2019/01/27/cz-edwards.html
The rent is too damned high because money-laundering oligarchs bought all the real-estate to clean their oil money
"In an absolutely epic Twitter thread (unrolled here) author CZ Edwards lays out an incredibly compelling explanation of spiralling real-estate prices: oligarchs need to launder a lot of oil money -- think Russia, Iran, ex-Soviet basket-case states, Saudi -- and so they plow the money into offshore Real Estate Investment Trust that then cleans it by outbidding any actual real-estate investors or would-be homeowners, bidding up and snapping up all the property in desirable cities, and then realizing the rental income-flows as legitimate, clean money."
That's what you're all seeing and experiencing in the five boros. The deals have already gone.
Street art is not really a movement, it is just the space in which the art is created and shown. Banksy’s work is very different from the Shadowman’s painted shadows, or Jim Power’s mosaics, or PhoebeNewYork’s paper cutouts, or Chico’s spray painted murals, or most other graffiti art. etc. There really is no art movement today, no idea or style of art that you can point to and identify as being part of a larger school of thought.. It’s is all very fragmented and individualistic. Mass Indivudualism might be the only way to describe what art is today. Years from now, when scholars are looking for what was the biggest visual arts movement of today, it will probably be the Selfie.
@Giovanni: Can't comment about "street art" but plenty of us still take art classes and make art. And when I'm late to class and out of paper, the internet does me no good; what I need is a Jerry's or a NY Central to duck into, grab what I need, pay for it & dash to class.
@8:27am: I did comment about the Brant Foundation show, but grieve chose to first publish my comment, then delete it. IMO, the Brant Foundation is not a "win" for the area. An art space that's being operated like a chi-chi club, where right out of the gate you need to get a timed ticket (I don't care that it's free) isn't something FOR the neighborhood, it's just something FOR Mr. Brant & his ego, and a place to show off his art. Does his foundation get a tax write-off for that place?
???? I did no such thing
Lets set the record straight: artists need theri supplies in real time, and they often run out of a brush, a color, a pen or type of canvas or paper. Ordering online does not help real working artists, or students who mess up a project, have an assignement that is due, and need last minute supplies. If there were as many artists working in this neighborhood today as there were in years past, the art stores would not all be shutting down.
Second, The Brant Foundation was set up as a tax dodge to allow a billionaire to house his property and get a tax write off from the building, insurance, staff and operations. Part of the requirement to get these tax writeoff is to show the work to the public and operate it part time as if its a museum. That’s why there are a limited number of tickets. So yes it is nice to be able to see these paintings which would otherwise be hidden from the world, but in reality it’s just a vanity project. Brant is not like the Swiss Institute or the New Museum or most galleries where anyone can walk in and see the work anytime, whcih means many people will nver see the work.
And dont forget about the marching band that Brant had playing for his opening party the nght that the buildings exploded on 2nd Avenue. The music played in the street while the buildings still burned ashes fell from the sky. Or maybe they were making an artist statement about life and death, creation and destruction, right?
The idea that there is no "art movement" because their are no "art stores" is the one of the silliest comments I've ever read. Great artists like Van Gogh, Picasso, and Andy Warhol were never part of any art movement. They were armies of one. Is a Warhol piss painting, or polaroid, or underground film "Pop Art" ?
They have nothing to do with Pop Art and everything to do with his unique sensibility. True commodification and branding are the rule of the day, yet that doesn't diminish the fact that great art is still being produced right now in every medium imaginable.
Heres a little Art History 101: Van Gough was a post-impressionist, and imitated the style of Gaugan, who was also a post-impressionist who moved later to symbolism. Andy Warhol did Pop Art, but he also did video art and Post-Modernist works. Picasso was a leader of the Cubist movement, and was also part of the Surrealist movement, Each artist pioneered and then built on the art movements of their time. Anyone who knows art knows the language that is used to describe these artists and their works. Each era had its own domination of major and minor art movements, but the fact is that today there really is no overarching idea or art movement, of there was someone would have given it a name. Perhaps some people need to get a better education about art before commenting on topic.
To the art history 101 lecturer. You misspelled Van Gogh's name. And Gauguin's. Classic!
Were you trying to be funny when mansplaining art history to us?
Art is dead. Where are all the hot galleries? They don't exist anymore. All the Indy galleries in Chelsea are closing down. Who are the new hot artists? There are no more Basquiats, artists who rejected the corporate mold. Most of the famous artists are just mass producing corporate garbage, Money and art as an investment have ruined art. A few top collectors and museums decide whose art is valuable, and the rest of the artists are left to starve. To pretend otherwise is pure ignorance.
@10:00pm: Oh, please, learn to spell if you want to make pronouncements and pontifications!
And there IS an overarching art movement currently; it's called "Art is dead."
HA!
First... New York Central closing is still something I and other artists here are reeling from. They had so many international suppliers and would get you anything without charging a huge fee. Jerry's and Blick have really well stocked online stores for most needs. The loss of the paper stock is a real tragedy. Talas is okay but not convenient or as exhaustive.
And as a side note... My favorite part of being someone who works in the art world, is the way people repeat what a textbook told them. Real art historians, artists, hell even dealers, know how to bullshit and sell it to people who can afford it.
@10 pm-
The idea that "Art" proceeds in Euro-centric linear movements is the second silliest thing I've ever read. Both Post Impressionists, Van Gogh borrowed heavily from Japanese art, Cezanne did not. Picasso borrowed from African art, Braque did not. Warhol, Johns and Rauschenberg couldn't be more different.
Great art transcends " movements", labels and text book descriptions. That's why it's great art.
David Hockney, Gerhard Richter, Anslem Keifer, Richard Serra, Daido Moriyama, Daivid Salle (not Julian Schnabel), Cindy Sherman, Christopher Wool, Al Weiwei..........
It’s obvious that somone is trying to rewrite the history of art and ignore that all art movements are by definition a hybrid of influences from other movements. It’s also obvious that by listing primarily white male American and European artists that you yourself are stuck in the old paradigm of the art world’s version of apartheid, which mostly considers art made by white males to be art, and everything else is considered to be ethnic art or of less value, making your comment about “Euro-centric liner movements” both nonsensical and hilarious. Each of those artists is also part of a movement of the past, something you either didn’t realize or are being quite dishonest about.
FInally, dissing Julian Schnabel, who has also proven to be a great filmmaker, makes you part of the ArtNews subscriber crowd that thinks they know what great art is while dismissing artists they could never compete with or do not understand. Now please exit though the gift shop and have a nice day.
@9:58 AM
I didn't diss Schnabel's films. I compared him to Salle, another painter. I find Schnabel's painting practice to be ham fisted rubbish for the most part.
I also also happen to like Alice Neel, Kara Walker, Agnes Martin. You're projecting when you infer that I'm dismissing art from other cultures. The artists I listed are artists of "past movements" ? They are all contemporary artists with their own unique practice.
Clearly you have no idea what your talking about. If you want to find out what nonsense is read your own comments and rebuttals. Your mansplaining the finer points of modern art are beyond silly.
"Stop mansplaining" said the "art expert" who keeps mansplaining everything LOL. You must be really fun at parties. You keep dismissing Julian Schnabel because that became the cool thing to do about 30 years ago, which shows how out of date your opinions are. That critique is straight out of the ArtNews subscriber playbook and it is really beyond ridiculous.
FYI found out recently that Kaufman's moved to Sackett Street in Brooklyn.
Jerry's was nearly always empty when I went there. It's a huge space; clearly rent is high. I have worried about this store's longevity for a long time.
These are great alternatives. Both independents! They would like to see your faces and your dollars!
Rent, rent, rent and Amazon. You can now buy your sable brushes and kitty litter together and have them there in a day. Every time an art supply store goes dark, so do the jobs for artists who work there. We have to go and support them. The independents do not buy product by the train load. They cannot offer 40% off everything. If we want these stores to remain we must walk in and spend our dollars with them. They cannot end up being showrooms for larger web entities. It's not about an art movement. It's about if you are willing to pay more for your supplies to keep the brick and mortar.
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