A CONVERSATION WITH SANDE WEBSTER
WEBSTER: Yes, other kinds of exhibiting
institutions seemed more open to showing and buying work by black artists. One of my favorite
On Thursday, January 22, 2015, Susanna W. Gold and Rachel McCay met with art dealer Sande Webster to discuss her career. SUSANNA W. GOLD: When did you become an art
WEBSTER: No. In fact, we had an opening every
dealer in Philadelphia?
month for each show, and fifty or sixty people
SANDE WEBSTER: In the beginning I was one of
four partners who opened a gallery called Wallnuts at 2018 Locust Street in 1967 or 1968. It wasn’t until later that my gallery was called Sande Webster Gallery. It might sounds a little silly, but we chose the name “Wallnuts” because we were nuts about walls! We wanted to do something that wasn’t
stories is about the Philadelphia Art Alliance calling to ask if they could have five pieces by five artists to show for Black History Month. I told them I wouldn’t provide work for shows during Black History Month unless they could also offer another month of the
would come because we had nice wine and nice
year when they would show one of these artists’
food! [laughs] The white people would start talking
work. When they told me they couldn’t and were
to the black people, because many of them didn’t
all booked up, I turned them down. But once I
know any black people. Life wasn’t as integrated
hung up, I realized that I was being stupid because
then as it is now. They would end up going out
these were exactly the people I wanted to see this
together to have something to eat, or making
art. So I called back and arranged to come with
arrangements to see each other later.
slides before the committee. When I got there I
being done in Philadelphia. So I called the dean
GOLD: So your gallery was profitable, despite
proposed that instead of five pieces by five artists,
of Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, David
those who doubted that you could be successful
they choose one piece each by twenty-five artists.
Pease, and asked if he could recommend some
representing black artists?
young artists who had graduated from Tyler. He sent me about thirty or forty he thought would be exciting, from which we chose perhaps twenty-five or twenty-eight, some of whom were black. David had not indicated to us which artists were black and which were not. When we opened, the owner of a prominent gallery on Walnut Street called to welcome me to the gallery scene. “But I hear you have black artists in your gallery,” she said. I said, “Well, we have good artists in the gallery. Some of them happen to be black, white, male, female, young, old, gay, and straight.” She said, “Well, don’t you know you can’t do that? If black people come, white people never come.” And, of course, the rest is history. We ended up selling art all over the world! Almost all our exhibitions were reviewed because
WEBSTER : Two years before we closed the gallery
The committee said, “Well, there aren’t that many Exterior of the Sande Webster Gallery. Photograph courtesy of Sande Webster
black artists around.” “Let me show you,” I said. I didn’t present the idea as a good thing they should
in 2011—we were on Walnut Street at that point—
be doing for black people—I presented the work as
we did almost $1 million worth of art business.
that if I was showing work at the National Black
really incredible and something people should see.
This was quite a lot, because the majority of the
Fine Art Show, I had to be black myself!
It was always about the quality of the work. Since
paintings we sold were between $2,000 and $10,000. We did sell some for $35,000 or $40,000,
RACHEL MCCAY: What was the environment like in
and every once in a while we sold one for $50,000.
Philadelphia for black artists when you began in the
We were selling a lot because in Philadelphia there
gallery scene, in the 1960s?
was no other place to buy work by black artists. We had people coming from everywhere to visit the gallery—New England; Washington, DC; the Midwest; and even California. That was a really nice thing. One man from California, who had heard about us at National Black Fine Art Show in New York, visited our gallery and said, “I’m here to see
WEBSTER: There were perhaps one or two galleries
that’s how I presented it, that’s how they received it. When they saw what I had brought, they ended up choosing one piece each by fifty-four artists! That show filled the whole Art Alliance, and they even produced a catalogue for it. And, instead of having
that represented black artists, but other than that,
the exhibition during Black History Month, they had
there was nobody. There had at one time been a
it in September, at the opening of the art year.
place on Seventeenth Street, Kenmore Galleries, that showed works by black artists, but it had moved out of Philadelphia.
Another of my favorite institutional stories is about the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Sam Gilliam was one of the first artists to take the canvas off the stretcher—he painted it, and then he draped it. In
Sande Webster.” I said, “Well, I’m Sande Webster.”
GOLD: At this time when there were so few
And he said, “You can’t be. Sande Webster is
commercial opportunities for black artists, did
1975 the Philadelphia Museum of Art was the first
GOLD: Did you ever lose clients or have people
black.” And I said, “So is Mariah Carey—can we go
you find institutions such as museums and other
to show this work in an outdoor exhibition, called
refuse to come because of race?
on from there?” [laughs] Lots of people assumed
exhibition spaces more willing and open to showing
Seahorses by Sam Gilliam. They hung a draped
their work?
canvas about fifty feet long outside, on the museum
the work was so good.
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WOODMERE ART MUSEUM
WE SPEAK: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s–1970s
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