About Us

Welcome!  Joseph Nease Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located in downtown Duluth, MN. Similar in scope to its progenitor in Kansas City, MO; the gallery features exhibitions of drawing, painting, ceramics, photography, sculpture, installation, and new media by artists regional, national and international.  For our current exhibition, please select the Exhibitions link.

The gallery is unique to upper midwest in both appearance and scope.  Through solo and group exhibitions, we showcase the work and seek to advance the careers of mid- and advanced- career artists and select emerging artists. As an arts destination, Joseph Nease Gallery also provides educational and social opportunities to art lovers and collectors, and those visiting beautiful Lake Superior and the northland.

We appreciate the support and confidence of our collectors and that of the Tweed Museum of Art who has added multiple works by gallery artists to its collection.  Gallery artists are included in the collections of numerous significant institutions including The Alberta Art Foundation, Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, Canada Council Collection, Daum Museum of Art, Des Moines Art Center, General Services Administration, Grand Rapids Art Museum, University of Iowa Museum of Art, Jersey City Museum, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, John Michael Kohler Art Center, Malmö Art Museum (Sweden), Minneapolis Institute of Art, Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Portland Art Museum, Sprint Corporation, Thoma Art Foundation, Turku Art Museum (Finland), Tweed Museum of Art, Weisman Foundation, and the Wichita Art Museum.  Our gallery artists have also been the recipients of several prestigious awards and grants including the Charlotte Street Fund award, Jerome Hill Foundation artist residency, Esther and Adolph Gottlieb Fountation grant, McKnight Composer Fellowship, McKnight Foundation residency, Mellon Foundation grant, Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, Pollock Krasner Foundation grant, Roswell Artist-in-Residence, Tulsa Artist Fellowship, and American-Scandinavian Foundation fellowship award. Essays and reviews of gallery and artist exhibitions have appeared in numerous publications and magazines including Art-in-America magazine, Art Papers, KC Studio magazine, and in significant published essays.

Located in Duluth's Historic Downtown Arts District and housed in a stately and expansive now 108 year old building, the gallery has the look and feel of a New York style gallery while incorporating the original industrial construction of local old-growth timbers and massive beams and columns forged with iron from the Iron Range.  The exterior façade has art deco terra cotta.  Adaptive re-use of the building was a driving concept in its renovation for both the interior and exterior.

The doors were opened at this location with our inaugural show Three States in October, 2017.  We have work available by all of our represented artists - just ask.  We also have a Reading Room with books selected by our artists, current art magazines, and comfortable seating.  Please contact us with any inquiries, and check our posted updates on our News page and social media. In addition to current and past exhibitions in Duluth, our Exhibitions page contains an archive of the previous Joseph Nease Gallery in Kansas City (opened 1998), providing some context on the current gallery.
 

STAFF

JOSEPH NEASE • DIRECTOR

AMANDA HUNTER • GALLERY MANAGER
manager@josephneasegallery.com
 

Our Current Exhibition: Distant Context

Our fall 2022 exhibition featured new and recent work by James Woodfill: Crossing Signals

Recent previous exhibitions are: Tara Austin - Boreal IV and Sirpa Särkijärvi - (to) reason | (to) sense

Inaugural Opening