NEW YORK, NY.- Leila Heller Gallery announces a major expansion with the opening of its second New York City gallery at 43 West 57th Street, a six-floor gallery space that is amongst the largest in New York.

The new Gallery is debuting with an exciting inaugural exhibition entitled Look at Me: Portraiture from Manet to the Present. This expansive exhibition spans almost two centuries with over 200 art works by 170 artists.

The Leila Heller 57th Street Gallery is an 18,000 square foot space, with unique multi-dimensional capability, including a 60-seat theater/auditorium and a full-floor project space for the purpose of showcasing exhibitions by emerging artists and curators.

The inaugural portraiture exhibition is curated by Beth Rudin DeWoody, collector and art institution trustee, and Paul Morris, a founding Director of the Armory Show, who is advising the Gallery as an ongoing curatorial consultant. The exhibition has been installed across both Leila Heller Gallery locations. The exhibition opened to the public on Wednesday, May 6 at 43 West 57th Street and on Thursday, May 8 at 568 West 25th Street and runs through August.

The 57th Street Gallery is under the direction of Tom Arnold, previously director of Mary Boone Gallery. After the inaugural exhibition, the new space will be devoted primarily to the Gallery’s expertise with Modern and Contemporary Masters, both in its exhibition program and its existing private dealing business. The exhibition program will focus on historical material including both solo exhibitions and survey shows focusing on broader art movements and themes. The West 25th Street location in Chelsea will remain dedicated to fostering the careers of emerging and mid-career artists, whose works will be presented selectively at 57th Street in a deeper art historical context via exhibitions mounted alongside concurrent shows of well established Modern and Contemporary artists.

In addition to 57th Street’s sheer size, the Gallery is multidimensional. The theater / auditorium space will present films and video art installations as well as host speaking engagements and panel discussions of cultural interest. The Gallery will also invite outside cultural organizations to use the auditorium for complimentary activities. The project space offers a truly unique platform. In addition, the new space will house the Gallery’s extensive book collection and private viewing spaces and offices.

Historical Survey of Portraiture
The inaugural exhibition, Look at Me: Portraiture from Manet to the Present, spans a vast historical period of 150+ years from Manet to the present, and explores perhaps the broadest and most practiced genre in art history. Throughout time, mankind’s preoccupation with the self - one’s appearance, perception and ultimate identity -- has influenced both artists to create, and individuals to commission, portraits. Portraits have been an indispensable way of communicating identity, with real as well as symbolic meaning for centuries of art audiences.

Over time, artists have sought to create portraiture to record and commentate on their subjects, and they have done so through a broad range of styles. Since the 19th century Portraiture has evolved through Realism, Minimalism , Conceptualism and finally Post-Modernism. Look At Me is an ambitious project to celebrate and explore portraiture in recent history and investigate how artists today are engaging with the broad spectrum of descriptive strategies .

The inaugural exhibition includes works by many renowned artists, including: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso, Jeff Koons, Willem de Kooning, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Tom Wesselmann, Francesco Clemente, Eric Fischl, Mitra Tabrizian, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Firooz Zahedi, Jack Pierson, John Currin, Cindy Sherman, George Condo, Loretta Lux, Marilyn Minter, Ai Wei Wei, Youssef Nabil, Iké Udé, Farideh Lashai, Shoja Azari, Rachel Lee Hovnanian, Josh Azzarella, Reza Aramesh.

The exhibition includes many seminal works, including Warhol’s “Blue Jackie,” “Bill” by Elaine de Kooning and “Peintre et son Modele” by Picasso.