Rehs Galleries

Rehs Galleries, Inc. is an art gallery on 57th Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States.

History

In the late 1930s or early 1940s, M. Edwin ("Eddie") Schillay, an accountant by trade, started importing 19th century British Victorian paintings into the United States. For the next 15 years he would purchase large quantities of Victorian paintings and ship them to the United States where they were sold in bulk. He was reputed to have bought out entire estates and large parts of auctions to satisfy his needs. His style of purchasing was so grand that he was written up in The Bournemouth Times, Westbourne, England in November 1958 when he purchased 60 paintings from one sale.

Photo of the gallery, 386 Park Avenue South, c.1967–68

Interior view of Rehs Galleries, Inc., 5 East 57th Street, 2005

In the mid-1950s, Eddie's wife, Ruth, entered the business and the two opened a space at 303 Park Avenue South; here they began to open the crates of paintings, selling them on an individual basis. In the late 1950s, Mr. Schillay’s daughter, Ann, married Joseph Rehs, also an accountant.

By 1960, the wholesale art business moved to 386 Park Avenue South, New York City and in 1961, Joseph Rehs decided to join the art firm.

Eddie died in 1963 and the firm's name (originally known as M. Edwin Schillay) was changed to Schillay & Rehs, Inc. During this period, the firm was one of the largest importers of 18th- and 19th-century European paintings, bringing in close to 600 paintings each month, and was a strictly wholesale establishment; supplying many of the nation's retail art galleries, department store chains like The J.L. Hudson Company and B. Altman & Company, and numerous furniture companies.

Throughout the 1960s and most of the 1970s, the firm continued with its then current mission of selling works on a wholesale basis. However, in 1978 the gallery moved from its location at 386 Park Avenue South to a new premises at 305 East 63rd Street, New York City. Here, while continuing its wholesale gallery business, they began catering to the interior design trade and their private clients.

As demand for high quality works of art from the 19th-century European period began to increase, so did their prices. This, in turn, reduced the number of works the gallery was buying and forced them to work directly with private buyers and collectors.

In 1981, Howard Rehs, after graduating from New York University with a degree in Art History, joined the firm. His first year was spent living in London—during which time he both bought works of art for the gallery’s inventory and learned the British Victorian market. Upon his return, a serious interest in French 19th century Academic, Realist and Barbizon art emerged and over the years more works from these schools were purchased by the gallery.

In 1991, Joseph Rehs bought out Richard Schillay, the last member of the Schillay family working in the firm, and changed the gallery’s name to Rehs Galleries, Inc.; in turn, Richard Schillay began Schillay Fine Art currently located at 520 East 72nd Street. It was also at this point that the gallery began working on the catalogue raisonné projects for Julien Dupré (1851–1910) and Daniel Ridgway Knight (1839–1924).

Rehs Galleries, Inc. was elected a member of the Fine Art Dealers Association in 1995 and Howard Rehs was elected to the association's Board of Directors and appointed its President in 1997 (a position he retained until July 2009). This same year Rehs Galleries, Inc. moved from the 63rd street premises to its current location at 5 East 57th Street, New York City. In 2003 the gallery began its Emile Munier online catalogue raisonné project and in 2007 the online project for Antoine Blanchard was launched; the latter has been headed up by Amy Rehs who stated working at the gallery on a part-time basis a few years earlier (Amy took on a full-time position in 2009). In 2008 Howard Rehs was appointed to the Internal Revenue Service's Art Advisory Panel and in 2009 he was elected a Life-time Honorary Member of the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art (AHNCA).

Today the gallery specializes in 19th- and early 20th-century European works of art and displays paintings many important Barbizon, Realist, Academic and Impressionist artists including: Eugène Boudin, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, William Bouguereau, Julien Dupré, Daniel Ridgway Knight, Edouard Cortes and Emile Munier. In addition, through its contemporary arm – Rehs Contemporary Galleries, Inc. – the firm features works by mid-20th-century American artists such as Ilya Bolotowsky and Ugo Giannini and represents a number of Contemporary artists.

Scholarly Research

Under the direction of Howard Rehs the gallery is currently involved in the following art historical research projects:

• Julien Dupré (1851–1910) – Catalogue Raisonné
• Daniel Ridgway Knight (1839–1924) – Catalogue Raisonné
• Emile Munier (1840–1895) – The Virtual Checklist
• Antoine Blanchard (1910–1988) – The Virtual Checklist

Association Memberships

• Fine Art Dealers Association (FADA) – Howard L. Rehs, President 1997–2009
• Internal Revenue Service's Art Advisory Panel
• Life-time Honorary Member of the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art (AHNCA) – Howard L. Rehs
• Art & Antique Dealers League of America
• CINOA

Gallery Exhibitions

• Antonio Jacobsen: 1870s, 1880s, 1890s – January 21 – February 11, 1988
• Flowers, Still life, Garden and Summer Views – October 4–24, 1988
• Barry Oretsky – November – December 1989
• Antonio Jacobsen: The Last 25 Years (1897–1921) – January 18 – February 9, 1990
• Warner Friedman – Recent Works – June 6–21, 1991
• The Salon (Paris) & Beyond: An Exhibition of French Paintings, 1880–1940 – March 25 – April 25, 1992

External links

• Rehs Galleries, Inc.