ON A.I.R.

A.I.R. Members, 1981.
Kazuko, Daria Dorosh, Mary Beth Edelson, Lenore Goldberg, Nancy Spero, Dotty Attie, Anne Healy, Patsy Norvell, Elaine Reichek, Donna Byars, Sari Dienes, Sandra Eisenstein, Photo: Mary Beth Edelson

“For its members […], the gallery provides visibility and freedom as women artists. As Dotty Attie says: ‘Without much money or anything, except talent…A.I.R. has helped to make the artist much less helpless.”

- Myrna Lebov, Ms. Magazine Gazette

January, 1978

“The idea, according to an A.I.R. spokesman, the painter Nancy Spero, was not only to give exposure to women from other countries, but to establish a link between avant-garde, feminist artists here and overseas.”

- Grace Glueck, The New York Times

May, 1976

“A.I.R. Gallery in New York City is a woman’s cooperative gallery founded a decade ago; it is generally regarded as having the highest standards of any co-op in the city, or probably anywhere.”

- Woodstock Times

June, 1982

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t get a half a dozen telephone calls from wide-eyed students who’ve heard about or read about the A.I.R. Gallery. And it’s true – the A.I.R. Gallery has a long and illustrious history.”

- Mary K. Pfeifer, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Downtown Arts Activities Calendar

January, 1995

"A.I.R. stands as proof of some of the early women's art movement's most important goals within the art world. It has been a room of our own where everyone is welcome."

- Lucy R. Lippard

November 1996

"(A.I.R.'s) inception was like a shot heard 'round the world."

-Nancy Spero

"... a key discussion at A.I.R., after the Anita Hall fiasco, had been instrumental in breathing new life into the demoralized women artists' movement. It was gratifying to know that A.I.R. was still a place where feminists could congregate and renew their resolve to make things better for all women in the arts."

-Cindy Nemser

June 1996

"That women have supported the first cooperative gallery of women artists for a quarter of a century is a testament to our endurance. The audacity to create this institution in what was a cultural wasteland for women is a testament to out risk taking ability and our vision of the future."

- Miriam Schapiro

October 1996

“It made perfect sense – was brilliant in fact – for a group of women to band together and create an alliance to show their work, to have a space of their own.”

- Brattleboro Reformer

April, 2007

“Since 1972, the trailblazing A.I.R. gallery in New York, the world’s first women’s art co-op, has provided quiet support for those operating outside the art world’s market-obsessed precincts.”

- Carey Lovelace, Art in America

June/July, 2007