As of November, G. Gibson Gallery will be in the same building as On the Boards, the great contemporary performance center.
As of November, G. Gibson Gallery will be in the same building as On the Boards, the great contemporary performance center. Courtesy of the gallery

Adding to the end-of-an-era feeling at the Tashiro Arts development in Pioneer Square, yet another anchor tenant is moving out this year. G. Gibson Gallery, a venerable showplace of art that's a highlight of every First Thursday Art Walk, will move uptown to Queen Anne at the end of October.

G. Gibson will land in the same building at On the Boards, the great contemporary performance center. Thematically, it's a perfect fit, and the two also share the stretch with INCA Seattle, a fantastic and unusual little literary-contemporary gallery.

G. Gibson represents the work of artists from the modern period, including Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and Alfred Stieglitz, but also many contemporary painters and photographers (many of them women), Susanna Bluhm and Samantha Scherer (showing now), Eirik Johnson, Thuy-Van Vu, Richard Misrach, Linda Davidson, Julie Blackmon, and Gala Bent, to name only a few. Gail Gibson is the widely respected head of the gallery.

Platform and PUNCH both left Pioneer Square this fall. CoCA and Zinc Contemporary took those leases. CoCA has been around a long time but is regrouping after a period of uncertainty and is a nonprofit, not a commercial gallery. Zinc is newer. There are few established traditional dealers in the neighborhood anymore—Greg Kucera is a block away, and a few blocks north are James Harris and Mariane Ibrahim.

I have a call in to Gibson to ask her why she's moving; I'll update when I hear.

UPDATE: Gibson wrote in email that "it was time for some changes. As we all know the gallery business has changed quite a bit in the last 10 years or so. We seem to do most of our business online so we feel that we can be at another location and be brave about it. We also feel that art should be seen in person, with a venue where there can be an exchange of thought and ideas. We are looking forward to a new venue in this performing arts building and will continue to have artist receptions but also plan on having other programming. We will not be doing First Thursdays. It was a hard decision, one that we've thought about for a few years. We will miss our friends and the terrific galleries in all of Pioneer Square so will need to visit."