Described by ARTnews as the "den mother of Abstract Expressionism," Betty Parsons became famous for identifying, promoting, and nurturing a new generation of American artists in the years after World War II. From her gallery on Fifty-Seventh Street, she spent more than three decades championing the work of numerous young artists, including most notably the painters of the New York School—Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Hans Hofmann, and Ad Reinhardt. An artist herself, she was as famous for encouraging young talent to grow and experiment as she was in recruiting them to her gallery. This portrait of Parsons at age seventy-nine by Austrian-born photographer Lisl Steiner was featured on the cover of ARTnews with the simple yet fitting caption, "The Remarkable Betty Parsons."

Lisl Steiner (born 1927)
Color photograph, 1979
Published March 1979
Lisl Steiner
©Lisl Steiner

Portrait of the Art World: A Century of ARTnews Photographs
National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian Institution

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