In 1952 Janet Fleisher and her former classmate, Eunice Leopold, opened the Little Gallery on Manning Street in Philadelphia, where they showed work by both prominent and little-known artists. In 1958 they opened Galerie Philadelphie in Paris, fostering an interchange of European and American avant-garde art between the two cities. By the mid 1960s, Fleisher had assumed sole ownership of the gallery, which she directed until hiring John Ollman in 1970. The two shared an enthusiasm for art outside of the mainstream, and the gallery’s program expanded to include folk, African, Oceanic, pre-Columbian and Native American art, in addition to the European and American avant-garde.
Over the next four decades, the gallery established a reputation as one of the world’s premiere sources for self-taught art, helping to define the field and to develop major public and private collections. Fleisher/Ollman was among the first to mount major exhibitions of work by Henry Darger, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Bill Traylor, and Martín Ramírez, and published early catalogues on James Castle, William Edmondson, and Joseph Yoakum. The gallery continues to represent significant American vernacular artists of the 20th century, including Felipe Jesus Consalvos and the Philadelphia Wireman, for whom the gallery acts as the primary representative.
