Founded by Frank S. Schwarz in 1930, the Schwarz Gallery opened on Atlantic City's famous boardwalk as specialists in antique furniture, silver and paperweights. The Gallery began to specialize in the fine and decorative arts of Philadelphia, and relocated to Center City Philadelphia during the Second World War. Marie Devlin Schwarz, Frank’s wife, became active in the Gallery in 1961. European and American paintings became the Gallery's primary focus when their son, Robert D. Schwarz, Sr., joined the firm in 1964. As time passed, the Gallery achieved recognition as the nation's foremost specialist in Philadelphia artists from the colonial through the early modernist periods.
To accompany its exhibitions, the Schwarz Gallery has published numerous scholarly catalogues including A Gallery Collects Peales (1987), featuring paintings by sixteen members of the Peale family, and 150 Years of Philadelphia Still-Life Painting (1997), including essays by twenty renowned art experts. Both of these publications are now considered standard references. Robert D. Schwarz, Jr. joined the firm in 2002 and became the Gallery’s third generation president after the untimely death of his father in 2004. The seventy-fifth anniversary celebration will include tributes to both his father and mother, and his grandparents.
The Schwarz Gallery has been a featured gallery at The Winter Antiques Show in New York and the Philadelphia Antiques Show for many years, and has been exhibiting at USArtists, the annual fine art show and sale that benefits the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts since 1993, a year after the show debuted. |
