The Nesta Revival: A Gallery Pioneer back at Jefferson Place, The Washington Post, 1986 by Paul Richard

Photographs from the Rockne Krebs photo archive and by Carol Harrison to accompany a 1986 article by Paul Richard for
The Washington Post about Nesta Dorrance and the
Jefferson Place Gallery.


The Nesta Revival: A Gallery Pioneer back at Jefferson Place,
​The Washington Post, 1986, Paul Richard.

The artists!
​Exhibition opening night
The Jefferson Place Gallery Reunion, Washington, DC, 1986
Photo © Carol Harrison

Back: Ed Zerne, Sam Gilliam, Eric Rudd, Rockne Krebs
Middle: John Wise, Carroll Sockwell, V.V. Rankin, Nesta Dorrance, Alice Denney, Franklin White
Front: Ben Abramowitz, Hilda Thorpe, David Moy

Photo © Carol Harrison

“What artists she discovered. 

Though the building where she showed
their work
– at 2144 P Street NW –
was demolished long ago,
​it has not been forgotten.
Remember how the front
stairs creaked?"
​
​Paul Richard

Paul Richard, Art Critic, The Washington Post. Photo © Carol Harrison

​​“It is not just the art – by Gene Davis, Tom Downing, Howard Mehring, Sam Gilliam and Rockne Krebs – that gives the Jefferson Place Gallery show now at 406 Seventh St. NW particular importance. Nor is it just the sight, there behind the counter, of dealer Nesta Dorrance selling art again.”
​
​Paul Richard

​Lorine Krebs, Rockne’s mother, in a small room in the Jefferson Place Gallery for his first solo exhibition in 1967.

​She is photographed with Number IV, Rockne Krebs, 1966, plexiglass, aluminum and Formica.

“The rooms upstairs were tiny – some were literally cubicles, about as high as they were wide – but they made new art look grand.”

​Paul Richard

“What made the Jefferson Place unusual,” says Krebs, who had seven exhibitions there, “is the consideration she extended to her artists. It had been founded as a cooperative, and she ran it that way. She never told you that your work was too experimental. She focused on the artists of this city – and she stuck with them.”

​Rockne Krebs
Paul Richard, The Washington Post, 1986, The Nesta Revival: A Gallery Pioneer, Back at Jefferson Place. 
​

ARTFORUM, 1969 full page ad for Jefferson Place Gallery exhibition.

"The first time Krebs installed his laser sculptures there
his mirrors made the walls dissolve so that the viewer felt
as if he were standing on a pinnacle, among endless,
floating lines of light, somewhere in outer space.”

​Paul Richard

Sculpture Minus Object, 1969, installed in ​the
Jefferson Place Gallery for Rockne Krebs: Energy Structures.

- HK