Bard’s Betty Parsons Retrospective Is a Revelation

Betty Parsons’s importance in postwar American art history as a fearless, groundbreaking art dealer is indisputable. Within a year after she opened her eponymous gallery in 1946, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still had all signed with her. Remarkable as this beginning was, her importance as a champion of unknown artists does not end there. Parsons gave first shows to Forrest Bess in 1949, followed by Robert Rauschenberg in 1951, Kenzo Okada in 195