Terry Dintenfass

Terry Dintenfass
Terry (right) with Jacob & Gwendolyn Lawrence circa 1970
Born	Theresa Schellenberg Kline April 4, 1920 Atlantic City, NJ
Died	October 26, 2004 New York, NY
Nationality	American
Movement	American Modernism Social Realism

Terry Dintenfass (April 4, 1920 – October 26, 2004) was an American art dealer.

Terry Dintenfass established her first gallery, the D Contemporary, in 1954 in the lobby of the Traymore Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where she sold the work of Milton Avery, Georgia O'Keeffe, Ben Shahn, John Marin, Max Weber, among others. She showed work on consignment from prominent New York dealers, and became especially close to Edith Halpert, whose Downtown Gallery represented the estate of Arthur Dove. In 1959, Dintenfass moved to Manhattan and opened the Terry Dintenfass Gallery. She was part of a wave of women dealers, along with Halpert, Grace Borgenicht, Betty Parsons, Antoinette Kraushaar, Joan Washburn and others, who worked the New York art market between the 1940s to the 1980s.

Dintenfass took a keen interest in social and political issues. She showed the works of African-American artists including Jacob Lawrence, whom she would represent for 25 years, Raymond Saunders, and Horace Pippin. Dintenfass notably represented African-American artists in a time when Manhattan galleries displayed little African-American art. The "Social Realist" painters Philip Evergood and Robert Gwathmey helped shape the gallery with a strong social consciousness. Once settled in New York, Dintenfass became the protégé of Edith Halpert. When Halpert retired in the early 1960s, the Arthur Dove estate joined Terry Dintenfass, Inc. which then had a stable of William King, Gwathmey, Evergood, Sidney Goodman, Hyman Bloom, Antonio Frasconi, among others, and later the sculptor Elisabeth Frink.