About The North Point Gallery
The North Point Gallery was founded in San Francisco in 1972 by Dr. Joseph A. Baird, Jr. In 1985, Alfred C. Harrison, Jr. took over the gallery and it became a center for research and connoisseurship on 19th- and early-20th century American paintings with an emphasis on the art of early California. The gallery carried paintings by such 19th century artists as Albert Bierstadt, Norton Bush, Edwin Deakin, William Hahn, Thomas Hill, William Keith, John Ross Key, Charles Dormon Robinson, Thaddeus and Ludmilla Welch, Virgil Williams, and Raymond Yelland, as well as works from the plein-air period by John Gamble, Percy Gray, Chris Jorgensen, Lorenzo P. Latimer, Edgar Payne, Granville Redmond, William P. Silva, and Theodore Wores. The gallery also exhibited contemporary California paintings by Joshua Adam, Ann Arnold, Russell Chatham, Barbara Janeff, and Carol Peek. We also maintained a center for research on early California art as part of the gallery’s operations.
The gallery has had a few locations over the years. First located at 872 North Point Street in San Francisco from 1972 to 1995. Then to 250 Sutter Street in downtown San Francisco from 1995 to 2000. Then to the historic Jackson Square neighborhood at 407 Jackson St. until 2015 when we moved to our last location at 2247 Fifth Street, Berkeley, CA.
When the gallery closed in March 2021, Alfred Harrison donated his extensive research archives to the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, CA and donated his book library to the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno.
PERSONNEL
Alfred C. Harrison, Jr., President: After ten years as a private collector and researcher, Alfred Harrison assumed ownership of the gallery in 1985. He is a lecturer and author of many articles (view list of publications) on early California paintings as well as monographs on William Keith, L.P. Latimer, William F. Jackson, and Thaddeus and Ludmilla Welch. In 2006, he wrote an essay and catalogue entries for California Impressions: Landscapes from the Wendy Willrich Collection published by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. He is currently searching for a publisher on a history of nineteenth-century California painting and a monograph on John Ross Key. Alfred Harrison was the guest curator for “The Golden Age of Yosemite Painting, 1859-1930, A Centennial Tribute,” at the Transamerica Pyramid Lobby, San Francisco, CA. in 1991 and “Before the Bridge: 19th Century Paintings of the Golden Gate,” Transamerica Pyramid Lobby, San Francisco, CA in 2000. He curated the San Francisco venue of the Gilbert Munger retrospective at The North Point Gallery in 2004 and the Bolinas Museum’s “Pastoral California: The Art of Thaddeus and Ludmilla Welch” in 2007. In 2015, he wrote the historic paintings chapter for the exhibition catalogue Tahoe: A Visual History for the Nevada Museum of Art. In 2018, Alfred wrote the catalogue and was guest curator for “Raymond Dabb Yelland: California Landscape Painter” at the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA.
Jessie Dunn-Gilbert, Director:
Jessie has worked for the North Point Gallery since 1986. She grew up in a theater family in New York and was a member of Robert Wilson’s first theater company based in New York City and traveled with the company to Europe and Iran. She moved with her family to the Napa Valley when she was 10 years old and worked for many years with the Napa Valley Theater Company as actor, director, tech, and office manager. She received honors in Art History from the University of California, Santa Cruz and apprenticed with Philippe Bonnafont, a dealer of architectural drawings in San Francisco before coming to work for Alfred Harrison at North Point Gallery. She now divides her time between North Point Gallery and Holton Studio Frame-Makers and Gallery in Berkeley, CA.
