Julien Levy opened his New York gallery in 1931, assembled the first Surrealist show ever held in that city, and over the next two decades exhibited works by Dali, Ernst, Cornell, Calder, Tchelitchew, Giacometti, Gorky, and many other luminaries of 20th-century art. But Levy was more than a gifted dealer: he also had a gift for friendship, and in this anecdotal memoir he re-counts his intimate dealings with some of the most innovative figures of his generation. He introduced Yves Tanguy to New York, conceived the idea fro Dali's "Birth of Venus" pavilion at the World's Fair, shared a summer house with Max Ernst, and fished with André Breton (yielding a memorable description of the Surrealist leader's run-in with a blowfish). And he was with Arshile Gorky in the final, tragic days before the painter's suicide. Memoir of an Art Gallery is the Story of prescient vision and lifelong devotion. By turns humorous and moving, it is also one of the most enjoyable works ever written about the pivotal time when Manhattan became the art capital of the world. This edition features a new introduction by Ingrid Schaffner, senior curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.