Betty Parsons

Biography:

Betty Parsons, born Betty Bierne Pierson, (31 January 1900 - 23 July 1982) was an American artist and art dealer known for her early promotion of Abstract Expressionism. She was known as "the den mother of Abstract Expressionism"

In 1946 she opened the Betty Parsons Gallery, which was located at 15 E. 57th Street in Manhattan sharing the fourth floor with the Sidney Janis Gallery and which specialized in Abstract Expressionism. She showed work by Barnett Newman, William Congdon, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Theodoros Stamos, Ellsworth Kelly, Mark Rothko, Forrest Bess, and Robert Rauschenberg among others. Helen Frankenthaler, the painter, who met Parsons in 1950, said: "Betty and her gallery helped construct the center of the art world. She was one of the last of her breed." Many of the Abstract Expressionist artists she launched left her gallery for more commercial galleries. Art critic, B. H. Friedman: "She was resentful. She had struggled so long to get them established, and other dealers capitalized on her efforts." Her other artists include Agnes Martin, Richard Pousette-Dart, Leon Polk Smith, Richard Tuttle, Mino Argento and Oliver Steindecker (who was Mark Rothko's last assistant) among others. She ran the gallery until her death in 1982.

Betty Parsons was also a painter. Her work is held in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, her personal papers and those from her gallery are held at the Archives of American Art.