A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to present A.I.R. Pioneers, an exhibition of Judy Cooper’s portraits of the founding and early members of A.I.R. Gallery. Along with Cooper’s photographs, a book by the same title serves as a catalogue for this exhibition.

Cooper, who is an Alumnae Member of A.I.R. Gallery, has spent the last five years photographing the gallery’s founders. When A.I.R. Gallery opened in New York in 1972, it was the first gallery in the U.S. that was of, by, and for women artists. Cooper states, “I had long heard of the legendary women who founded the gallery. In 2007, I found out that most of them were still working artists and still lived in the NYC area. I got the idea of photographing them as a way of paying them tribute.”

The timing of this exhibition coincides with the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the gallery.