“Cape Lookout” 47″ x 72″ oil painting sold by Gallery West around 1976
I recently attended the funeral mass and celebration of the life of my long-time and cherished friend, Ann LaRiviere. When the priest and family spoke of her many achievements, Gallery West was frequently mentioned and one speaker said it had launched the careers of many Northwest artists.
I am one of those artists and it did, indeed, launch me.
In late 1969 Ann and her friend Joanne Perri called me and said they were starting a gallery and hoped that I would show my work there. They were total strangers, housewives with large families, with absolutely no gallery experience and I decided to take a chance. Why not? So far, I had only been showing my paintings with the Portland Art Museum Rental/Sales Gallery, furniture stores and the Tektronix cafeteria.
So with a small start-up fund from their husbands, Steve LaRiviere and Frank Perri and their full, if slightly dubious support, the women rented a tiny space in a tucked-away building in the Raleigh Hills suburb of Portland. Their first show opened in January 1970 and had 6 artists – Tom Hardy, Evelyn Sheehan, 3 other artists whose names I can’t remember and me. They proudly paid their husbands back in two months.
Ann and Joanne frankly admitted that they knew nothing about how a gallery should be run, so they simply did what they knew best and ran it like a family, nurturing their artists, encouraging them, praising them, sometimes using a little “tough love” and most importantly, – selling their work.
During those “Gallery West years” I had a show every two years and kept the gallery steadily supplied with paintings which they sold to corporations, banks, hospitals and many private collectors. In fact, they sold nearly every painting I did for 14 years.
After just a few months they had signed enough artists to overflow their tiny space and moved to a slightly larger building in a small shopping complex across the street. Their staff consisted of their friends and neighbors and every opening was a party where friends and family members joined in supporting the artists. One of Ann’s daughters told me that the gallery had enriched their lives, and I know it did the same for my family as well.
Joanne recently told me that the gallery had represented over one hundred Northwest painters, sculptors, potters and printmakers. Only Tom Hardy was the best known at that time, but the now familiar artists’ names include:
Bennet Norrbo, Harold Balazs, Don Gray, Ray Ho, Margaret Coe, Mark Clarke, Susan Comerford, Kenyu Moriyasu, Mike Burns, Paul and Kay Buckner, George Hamilton, Sally Merriman, Michelle Taylor, John Jay Cruson, Liza Jones, Mike Smith, Gary Lawrence, Christine Tarpey, John Rock and Elsa Warnick.
In 1984, Ann and Joanne decided it was time to sell the gallery and go on to other interests, but the new owners had more enthusiasm than experience and closed the gallery after just a few months. Bennet Norrbo mourned to me that this was the “end of an era”.
But it wasn’t the end of the support that Ann and Joanne gave to those artists who stayed in touch with them. They attended my openings at other galleries, were enthusiastic and encouraging in my career choices and stayed our constant friends.
Joanne plans to come to see my new technique soon, and as usual, I will value her opinion.
