Grapestake Gallery in San Francisco

The Grapestake Gallery was founded in San Francisco in 1974 by Thomas V. Meyer and his sister Ursula Gropper. The gallery was the first in San Francisco to exhibit photographs concurrently with painting and sculpture. The gallery helped to introduce and validate photography as a fine-art and collecting medium. The gallery opened with an Ansel Adams retrospective and later exhibited artists such as Harry Callahan, Joel Meyerowitz, Paul Strand, William Eggleston, Richard Misrach, Berenice Abbott, Imogen Cunningham, Judy Dater, Lewis baltz and Jerry Uelsmann. Richard Misrach had his first one-man show here. Grapestake Gallery closed in 1984 but Meyer and Gropper continued to promote fine-art photographs as independent dealers.

The world was not terribly much aware of fine art photography until Adams was discovered. When Adams, because of his great personality, his flamboyance, his humor, his generous nature, came on the scene and had some help from some promotional people, people started paying attention. Initially, there was virtually no market for photographs; nobody bought prints. When we opened our gallery, which was in 1974, we were selling a 16 x 20 inch Adams print for $500.

— Ursula Gropper

References

• Photography of Ansel Adams, PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer, January 11, 2002, Transcript