In 1926, using funds saved up from her years working for an investment bank, Edith Halpert opened the Downtown Gallery in New York City. Resolving to give new and less conventional artists a chance to show their work, she opened her exhibition space to such artists as Ben Shahn, William Zorach, Stuart Davis, and John Marin, and over the next decade she became an important force in winning acceptance in the art world for various strains of modernism. At the same time, Halpert was passionately interested in the long-neglected American folk-art tradition of the nineteenth century. Devoting much of her time to locating fine examples of that genre, she transferred this enthusiasm to clients. Under her guidance, several of the country's most distinguished folk-art collections were formed.

Painted by Marguerite Zorach, one of the artists handled by Halpert, this picture shows Halpert in the Downtown Gallery's "daylight gallery." Halpert and her unidentified visitor sit in swivel chairs conceived by the modernist designer Donald Deskey.