NEW YORK, NY.- SoHo (South of Houston Street) was home to a vibrant art scene in lower Manhattan beginning in the 1960s. Artists lived and worked in massive, light-filled lofts above the many important and pivotal galleries below at street level. Some of the early galleries included Park Place Gallery, 112 Greene Street, Paula Cooper Gallery, OK Harris, Artists Space and later in the 420 West Broadway building Leo Castelli, Andre Emmerich, and Ileana Sonnabend. Some of the many noteworthy artists who lived and worked in SoHo included: Adolph Gottlieb, Al Held, Ray Parker, Eva Hesse, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Donald Judd, Nam June Paik, Chuck Close, Neal Jenny, Deborah Remington, and Fred Eversley, among many others. Thornton Willis, Joan Thorne and Dean Fleming lived and worked in SoHo during that early and dynamic period from the mid-1960s and onward. Willis, who moved to SoHo in 1967, and Fleming knew each other. Thorne knew Willis and Vered Lieb (who is married to Willis). Willis and Thorne were early residents in SoHo and continue to create new paintings and live in their original lofts to this day. Fleming, a founding member of the Park Place artist cooperative, moved to SoHo in 1965 when Park Place Gallery expanded and relocated to a large space at 542 West Broadway near Houston when the original location (the Washington vegetable market) became the site for the World Trade Center. Later in the 1960s, Fleming and his wife Linda founded Libre, an artist community in the Rocky Mountains. Fleming maintained studios in New York and continued to exhibit in SoHo well into the 1980s. New York and the rich experiences with the Park Place group of artists and the vibrancy and intensity of the community of artists in SoHo had a profound impact on Fleming and his work. Fleming’s processes and approaches to painting and imagery, particularly in the 1970s and 80s, were very much inspired by his many international trips and experiences in North Africa, the Mediterranean, Japan, Mexico, Guatemala, Central America, Panama, and Western US.

Associated Artist

• Dean Fleming
• Joan Thorne
• Thornton Willis

Associated Exhibitions

• It Happened In SoHo, Paintings from Late 1960s through the 80s
  
  THORNTON WILLIS
  JOAN THORNE
  DEAN FLEMING
  
  
  Extended
  June 11, 2023 - August 10, 2023
  MORE INFO

Associated News

• April 15, 2024
  Joan Thorne, painter and artist
  Two Coats of Paint
  Vittorio Colaizzi
  April 15, 2024
  
  


• March 18, 2024
  Joan Thorne: An Odyssey of Color
  GalleriesNow
  March 18, 2024
  
  


• March 18, 2024
  “Joan Thorne: An Odyssey of Color,” at David Richard Gallery, New York (opens March 20)
  The New Criterion
  James Panero
  March 18, 2024
  


• March 8, 2024
  Press Release - Joan Thorne - An Odyssey of Color


• February 17, 2024
  A 1974 feminist art show gets a citywide, multi-venue blockbuster sequel
  The Philadelphia Inquirer
  Carrie Rickey
  February 8, 2024
  
  


• November 1, 2022
  Dean Fleming: Fourth Dimension
  The Brooklyn Rail
  Tom McGlynn
  November 1, 2022
  
  


• October 26, 2022
  Spotlight: A Focused Exhibition of American Painter Dean Fleming’s 1960s Abstractions Charts a Stylistic Transformation
  Artnet News
  October 26, 2022
  
  


• October 21, 2022
  Dean Fleming Paints the Fourth Dimension
  Hyperallergic
  John Yau
  October 21, 2022
  
  


• September 20, 2022
  Dean Fleming Fourth Dimension
  GalleriesNow
  September 19, 2022
  
  


• September 19, 2022
  Dean Fleming's paintings from 1964 to 65 inaugurate David Richard Gallery's 2nd location in Chelsea
  ArtDaily
  September 19, 2022
  


• September 18, 2022
  Press Release - Dean Fleming Fourth Dimension


• May 12, 2022
  Thornton Willis: A Painting Survey, Six Decades: 1967–2017
  The Brooklyn Rail
  By Tom McGlynn
  May 12, 2022
  


• May 1, 2022
  “Thornton Willis: A Painting Survey, Six Decades, 1967–2017”
  Gallery chronicle
  by James Panero
  May 2022
  
  


• April 28, 2022
  Thornton Willis’s Aversion to Perfection
  Hyperallergic
  John Yau
  April 28, 2022
  


• April 12, 2022
  The Critic’s Notebook
  by The Editors
  On the American Revolution, Thornton Willis, Charleston, Richard Strauss & more.
  Dispatch April 12, 2022 10:30 am
  
  


• April 10, 2022
  Thornton Willis, Illuminating the Future of Abstract Art
  New York Sun
  Dana Gordon
  April 10, 2022
  
  


• April 5, 2022
  Thornton Willis: A Painting Survey Six Decades: Works from 1967 - 2017
  GalleriesNow
  April 5, 2022
  
  


• March 30, 2022
  Thornton Willis: A Painting Survey Six Decades: Works from 1967 - 2017
  GalleriesNow
  April 5, 2022
  


• March 26, 2022
  Press Release - Thornton Willis A Painting Survey, Six Decades: Works from 1967 – 2017


• February 29, 2020
  10 YEARS of the International Surrealism Now Exhibition at CAE
  Yahoo Finance
  


• September 28, 2017
  Press Release - Dean Fleming "Duality"


• September 19, 2017
  ‘Delirious’ at Met Breuer
  Blouin ArtInfo, 09/19/2017
  
  


• September 14, 2017
  Postwar Art Gets a Nervy Makeover
  New York Times, 09/14/2017
  Roberta Smith
  
  


• September 1, 2003
  An Interview with Artist Thornton Willis
  Julie Karabenick
  GeoForm
  September 2003
  
  


• June 21, 2023
  Thornton Willis, Joan Thorne and Dean Fleming, It Happened In SoHo, 1960s to 80s at David Richard Gallery
  ArtDaily.org
  June 21, 2023
  
  


• June 12, 2023
  It Happened In SoHo, Paintings from Late 1960s through the 80s
  GalleriesNow
  June 12, 2023
  
  


• June 12, 2023
  Press Release - It Happened In SoHo,
  Paintings from Late 1960s through the 80s
  
  THORNTON WILLIS
  JOAN THORNE
  DEAN FLEMING