09/16/2026
As we near the end of our current exhibition celebrating the gallery's 50th anniversary, we are posting a few more throwbacks. Learn more about the last couple decades at KMFA below:
Over these years the gallery has, of course, changed and grown—slides gave way to pixels, and emails led to the gallery’s long-running Picture of the Week. In 2010, KMFA opened a second location in Bridgehampton, where Kathryn spent her weekends introducing artists from the New York program to a Hamptons audience. In 2016, as Kathryn celebrated 40 years in business, the Chelsea gallery expanded, adding exhibition and office space. The Bridgehampton gallery closed in 2023 after 13 years, and a month later KMFA opened a second Chelsea location at 179 Tenth Avenue, doubling its footprint in the neighborhood and giving the gallery its first street-facing space.
But for all the changes, the basic vision of the gallery remains the same. KMFA’s program is based on working with artists who create art that is visually compelling, conceptually substantial, and financially accessible. The gallery also has a distinct sensibility that favors abstract painting that is unabashedly beautiful, with a liberal but controlled use of color, a generosity of spirit, and what Kathryn terms a “Joie de Paint.” Kathryn says, “Each of our artists has their own agenda and a unique visual language for expressing it, but there is a common visual clarity. We look for painting that expresses that kind of clarity, a tension between control and accident, and a joy in the sensuality of color and surface. We love a complex structured abstraction based on perceived reality and representational art that is informed by principles of abstraction.”
Visit the link in our bio to learn more about the last 50 years at KMFA.
