Last week, Daisha Board Gallery opened a second location in downtown Dallas, and this weekend, J. Peeler Howell Fine Art will debut a new gallery space in Fort Worth.
After opening her namesake gallery in Dallas’ Tin District a year and a half ago, Daisha Board says she has seen much success both through visitorship and arts sales. Ms. Board told Glasstire that people have traveled from across the country to visit her gallery, and that the majority of artists represented by the gallery made five-figures in sales this past year. She also explained that while the West Dallas location is ideal as a welcoming and accessible space, the gallery is already outgrowing its main location.
Though she says her gallery was not invited to be a part of the 2023 Dallas Art Fair, on Friday, April 21 she hosted an opening event at her new downtown location at the iconic Joule Hotel. Her gallery’s expansion is history-making, in that it is the first Black woman-owned gallery in downtown Dallas.
Ms. Board explained, “I’ve been working on expanding Daisha Board Gallery since attending Art Basel. I met with Shalissa Perry, CMO for Downtown Dallas Inc. and Jeny Bani, a CMO of Headington Companies to discuss leasing the space in between Traffic L.A and CBD Provisions, both Headington Companies spaces, and made it happen! It’s definitely not a pop-up like other activations. This second location will be dedicated to exhibitions featuring international artists from across the African Diaspora!”
Learn more about Daisha Board Gallery via its website.
Earlier this spring, Peeler Howell announced his intentions of opening J. Peeler Howell Fine Art, a new gallery space in Fort Worth.
Mr. Howell was part of the Fort Worth Contemporary Art Partners (FWCAP), the group that took over ownership of William Campbell Gallery following the retirement of Bill and Pam Campbell in 2020. He served as the Director of William Campbell Gallery for the last few years and helped oversee the expansion of the gallery into its second location, which is closer to the city’s downtown. Mr. Howell stepped down from his work with William Campbell Gallery in November due to creative differences amongst FWCAP. In January, the gallery appointed Anne Kelly Lewis as its new director, and around the same time Mr. Howell began the process of establishing his LLC.
Peeler Howell Fine Art is located just south of I-30 near Montgomery Street, on the edge of Fort Worth’s Cultural District. Just over a decade ago, the experimental art space And X prospered for a few years in the same building complex where Mr. Howell’s new gallery is located. While J. Peeler Howell Fine Art endeavors will be a welcoming and inviting space for all, its general focus will be more traditional: on customers, clients, and collectors.
Mr. Howell told Glasstire, “I think there is a particular niche that this gallery fills, in that Pam and Bill always had in mind the people of Fort Worth, so that’s what I had in mind too, but a lot of the artists they are working with have been showing in Fort Worth for 30 or 40 years. I saw an opportunity to expand the type of model that Bill and Pam put together by bringing in new artists.”
The gallery will open with a group exhibition this Saturday evening and plans to host five to six exhibitions a year, with a mix of solo and group shows. The inaugural show, Unveiled, features three artists who have never exhibited in Texas before, Tom Judd, Holly Miller, and Laurie Skantzos, alongside local artists, including Adam Fung, Lynn Samis, Tom Motley, Engeline Logtenberg, Leigh Ann Williams Hickey, David Willburn, Geoff Wells, and Collin Howell.
Learn more about the gallery and its upcoming exhibitions via the J. Peeler Howell Fine Art website.