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At first there seem to be two disparate aesthetic styles at play at the Allan Stone Gallery:  the elegantly installed New York School of Abstract Expressionists in the main space and an upstairs room brimming with raw, decorative art—finger-painted British landscapes, early Gaudi gothic chairs, and a ceramic airplane. In fact, the gallery deliberately mixes such exuberant, emerging talents with established masters. Stone, who opened his gallery in 1960, gave Wayne Thiebaud a show two years later and was one of the first dealers to work with Willem de Kooning, Joseph Cornell, Franz Kline, Robert Ryman, and Eva Hesse. Before becoming Allan Stone Gallery in 1992, the building was a Victorian firehouse and then an outpost for alpine explorers. There remains an inviting garden patio—with contemporary sculpture—that connects the main building to a former stable (now offices and a screening room).The most personal and telling legacy of the gallery lies in the museum-quality catalogues that accompany major exhibitions.

  — Lori Cole