Stable Gallery

The story

Before it showed Andy Warhol or Robert Indiana, the Stable Gallery sold mannequins. Founded in 1953 by Eleanor Ward in a West 58th Street livery stable — the source of its name — it pivoted from fashion photography toward something harder to categorize. Christian Dior encouraged Ward early on. By the mid-1950s she was staging annual homage shows to the 1951 Ninth Street Art Exhibition, gathering de Kooning, Pollock, Kline, and Rauschenberg under one roof. Those Stable Annuals became a serious gathering point, and the gallery grew into the place that gave Marisol Escobar her first solo New York show.