Edith Halpert

Edith Halpert
Edith Halpert reading at the home of Charles Sheeler, between 1933 and 1942
Born	Edith Gregoryevna Fivoosiovitch 1900 Odessa, Russia
Died	1970 New York, NY
Spouse(s)	Samuel Halpert

Edith Halpert or Edith Gregor Halpert (née Edith Gregoryevna Fivoosiovitch (Fein)) (1900–1970) was a pioneering New York City dealer of Modern art. She brought recognition and market success to many avant-garde American artists over her forty-year career from 1926 through the 1960s. Her establishment, The Downtown Gallery, one of the first in Greenwich Village, introduced or showcased such modern art luminaries as Stuart Davis, Georgia O'Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Jacob Lawrence, Charles Sheeler, David Fredenthal, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Ben Shahn, Jack Levine, Marguerite and William Zorach, and many others.

Halpert arrived in the U.S. as a penniless Russian Jewish immigrant, transformed the landscape of Modern art, and died a multimillionaire at the age of 70. Sotheby's credited her with having put modernist painting auctions on the map with the posthumous sale of her collection for $3.6 million in 1973.

Halpert was born Edith Gregoryevna Fivoosiovitch to Gregor and Frances Lucom Fivoosiovitch, Odessa, Ukraine, April 25, 1900. She had a sister, Sonia, ten years older. She emigrated in 1906 with her mother and sister, but without her father as he had died around her fourth birthday of tuberculosis. At this time the family name changed to Fivisovitch. They initially settled on the west side of Harlem. At 16, Halpert worked at Bloomingdale's department store as a comptometer operator. She also studied drawing under Leon Kroll and Ivan Olinsky at the National Academy of Design and life drawing with George Bridgeman at the Art Students' League.