Founded in 1997 by John Cheim and Howard Read, Cheim & Read is a contemporary art gallery in New York that presents both recent and historically-significant artworks in museum-quality exhibitions. The gallery works directly with some of the world's most important artists, foundations, and estates, including Lynda Benglis, Louise Bourgeois, Ron Gorchov, Jack Pierson, Serge Poliakoff, and Sean Scully.
Established in Chelsea, Cheim & Read opened on West 23rd Street with an exhibition of Louise Bourgeois and Jenny Holzer in February 1997. In 2001, it moved to a new gallery designed by Richard Gluckman at 547 West 25th Street, where the gallery mounted monographic exhibitions of Joan Mitchell (2018), Sean Scully (2017), Lynda Benglis (2016), and Al Held (2016), among others. These exhibitions were complemented by a generous independent publication program that created over 90 exhibition catalogues.
In the fall of 2019, the gallery relocated to the Upper East Side, and opened a space designed by Toshihiro Oki at 23 East 67th Street with an exhibition of historical paintings by Ron Gorchov (2019). Cheim & Read's new program will examine key periods in artists’ oeuvres. Through relationships developed over nearly forty years in the contemporary art world, Cheim & Read creates this programming outside of the exclusive representation model.
In addition, the gallery deals in private sales on the secondary market. This work is informed by decades of connoisseurship and an extensive archive built from working directly with Joan Mitchell, Al Held, Alice Neel, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Andy Warhol. The gallery has also exhibited and placed historically-significant works by Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Mark Rothko, Pablo Picasso, Chaim Soutine, and Cy Twombly.
The gallery facilitates museum exhibitions, special projects, and commissions of large-scale, site-specific sculpture for both public and private collections. The gallery participates in select international art fairs, including Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach.