How New York Gallerist Eric Firestone Builds His Artists’ Legacies

His schedule might include a dizzying array of international art fairs (including an alternative fair of his own), but Eric Firestone can most often be found inside his eponymous East Hampton gallery, where he engages with clients and neighbors alike.

“Community works here in a way that they take notice if you’re accessible or if you’re not accessible,” Firestone told Artsy. “I’ve never hidden behind a wall. I don’t sit in an office and wait to come out for the right people.”

Firestone’s “open-door” policy has been a fixture of his Long Island gallery since it was founded in 2010. Luxury developments and well-heeled residents have sprung up in the years since, but the dealer has maintained throughout that a welcoming gallery is a welcoming art world. “I sit in my gallery, and I’ll engage anybody that walks in,” he said.

Firestone, who also operates a second space on Great Jones Street in New York City, has steadily built a strong reputation for platforming underrecognized 20th-century artists. Underpinned by a scholarly approach to legacy-building, his gallery has helped to shape the stories of now-known artists such as Joe Overstreet, Shirley Gorelick, Thomas Sills, and Miriam Schapiro. Today, he’s also extending this approach to a number of contemporary artists he believes will make their mark on art history, such as Lauren dela Roche, whose show “No Man’s Land” closed on June 29th.

Firestone is a gallerist who refuses to sit still. During the slew of New York art fairs in May, he hosted the second edition of his own alternative art fair with 19 galleries, “That ’70s Show,” to showcase work made during the 1970s. And when his attention isn’t on researching new artists or immersed in the scholarship for his current roster, he is engaging with his community—in New York City and East Hampton—with a busy and buzzy program.

A self-taught start

A University of Arizona dropout, Firestone dove headfirst into the art world by opening a gallery at the age of 22 in Tucson, Arizona. Instead of taking well-trodden paths such as studying art history or apprenticing under an established dealer, Firestone honed his curatorial eye autodidactically, driven by a love of research and experimentation.

“I didn’t have anybody to inform me what to look at or what not to look at,” Firestone said. “When you’re in New York, there’s so much to take in, so [starting in Arizona] allowed me to be open to all different types of things, which served me well when I came to New York.”

It was in Arizona where Firestone sharpened his focus on 20th-century American art, post-war modernism, antiquities and design, and folk art. During this time, Firestone was handling works by artists such as the late American painter Jorge Fick, a graduate of Black Mountain College. By 2008, he had opened another location in Scottsdale, Arizona, where his attention remained on mid-century artists.

Relocating to the Hamptons

The same year Firestone opened his second gallery, he attended the Art Hamptons fair for the first time. In 2009, he would return to the fair, and drawn by its small-town charm, he and his family decided to head east the following year. Firestone’s gallery, in the heart of East Hampton, quickly carved out a popular niche for the kind of underrepresented artists that have become his calling cards. Solo exhibitions for artists such as Minimalist Michael Boyd and curated shows that spotlighted overlooked mid-century talents such as Paul Waters and Martha Edelheit were among the highlights that consolidated his presence within the local community.

“I’m a big believer in one word, which is ‘relationships,’” said Firestone. “I have made some really wonderful relationships, and it’s not all about art world relationships—it’s about people and being a part of the community and engaging and showing, ‘Hey, this is what I’m looking at and sharing that.’ The necessary part of the business is the buying and the selling of the business, but it’s not the part that gets me out of bed in the morning. The part that really is important to me is finding what I’m seeing and sharing it with other people and sharing it with audiences.”

The Hamptons space remains a venue where Firestone can work outside the expectations of the contemporary art world. For instance, his “Summer Games” show, on view until July 28th, places work from 18 different artists together. Here, Firestone takes a playful approach to create new conversations between living and historical artists, such as Colleen Herman and Pat Passlof, respectively.

Establishing a New York City presence

“I was only going to come into New York City if it was on my terms, not on anybody else’s,” said Firestone. After passing up a couple of opportunities to share spaces with other galleries in the city, he decided on a fourth-floor loft on Great Jones Street in 2015. He inaugurated the space with a show focused on Schapiro’s paintings from her years in California. He followed this with solo shows for Boyd, Henry Chalfant, and Marica Marcus. “If you really have an authentic voice, people will figure you out no matter where you are in New York,” Firestone noted.

In 2020, Firestone doubled down on Great Jones Street and opened a second location on the ground level down the street. Not only does he claim the block is the best restaurant street in the city, but he also cherishes the gallery community, which includes names such as Karma and Venus Over Manhattan. In fact, this May, during Frieze New York, he hosted the second edition of “That ’70s Show,” featuring 19 galleries, including James Fuentes, Van Doren Waxter, and RYAN LEE, among others.

A legacy of legacy-building

Firestone places scholarship at the heart of his gallery’s program. Before presenting an artist, he dedicates years to collecting and curating their works. “It takes a minimum of five years to start to get true traction [when doing the research]—seven to 10 years is probably the sweet spot—but at least five years because you’re doing all the scholarship,” Firestone said.

“A lot of what the gallery has been known for over the past decade, specifically in New York, is historical reexamination of American artists,” he added.

One notable success is his work with Overstreet, an underrepresented member of the Black Abstractionist movement during the mid-to-late 1960s. Firestone first encountered Overstreet’s asynchronously geometric abstract work after the gallery’s senior director Jennifer Samet encountered his work in 2007. Together, they visited the artist at Kenkeleba House in 2017 and began to work with him shortly afterward.

Firestone’s research ever since has placed the artist in conversation with Ed Clark and Jack Whitten. Over the years, Firestone has successfully placed between 12 and 15 of the artist’s works with leading institutions, culminating in a traveling exhibition opening at Houston’s Menil Collection in 2024. The exhibition is slated to travel to the Mississippi Museum of Art and a yet-to-be-announced third venue.

Eyes open for contemporary talent