Gallerists Charles and Edna Reinike have owned Reinike Gallery since 1971, when they stepped in to carry on the gallery started by Charles' parents in 1930.
Charles Reinike is an artist himself as well as a gallerist. He came from a family of painters including his parents and his two sisters. His sister, Gretchen R.R. Eppling, is part of the gallery's stable of artists. His degree in Philosophy has shaped his direction as an artist.
For more than 50 years the Reinikes have worked closely with other artists to present works that will resonate with viewers and, hopefully, touch their souls. The gallery shows only original paintings. Each piece is as unique as the artist who has created it.
The Reinikes have brought together talented artists who share the love of art and have the creative skills to create meaningful and enduring artworks. Their paintings range from Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism to Modern Impressionism, Hyperrealism and Symbolism. Despite a diversity of styles and techniques, the artists have a camaraderie that energizes the gallery. Each artist has a unique vision. Some are driven by process and others are driven by content, but they all share a passion for art.
Reinike Gallery opened in 1930 as Reinike Academy of Art.
Charles and Vera Reinike met in art school in Chicago during the Roaring Twenties. She was an aspiring young German fashion designer who had traveled around the world, and he was an accomplished watercolorist with an emerging graphic design business. They shared a mutual love of art. However, Reinike's young company fell victim to The Great Depression and he was forced to return to his native New Orleans. His bride-to-be, Vera, later followed and the two began a life-long partnership that created Reinike Gallery.
In 1927 a group of artists had banded together to form the New Orleans Art League. Upon his return to New Orleans, Reinike joined with these artists in the New Orleans Art League building on Toulouse Street in the historic French Quarter.
Among that illustrious group were Morris Henry Hobbs, Albert Rieker and Clarence Millet. They were a young band of painters, sculptors and printmakers who shared artistic vision, studio space and (when finances permitted) models.
Although people had no money to buy art during the depression, Vera and Charles saw an opportunity to continue their art careers by opening an art school. Reinike Academy of Art was born in that Toulouse Street building. Vera taught Fashion Illustration and Design while Charles taught Painting and Drawing. Others taught their particular specialties.
Because of the hot summers in New Orleans, Charles and Vera bought land and built a camp in West Feliciana Parish where they held a special eitght-week summer session each year. Students and teachers painted the countryside around the art colony they named "Audubon Woods" for the naturalist John James Audubon who had found such great inspiration in those woods and cliffs.
WWII disrupted the idyllic life, and as a member of the Coast Guard, Charles was enlisted to create artist's renderings of plans for Higgens Industries to visualize the finished products for workmen who could not read the blueprints for the planes and boats they were charged with building. Vera opened their home to traveling soldiers who needed housing. By this time, the Reinikes had two young daughters.
Following the war, Charles opted to pursue painting full-time and was only occasionally teaching. Vera was beginning to be sought after as a muralist, but she was also a mother who had to care for their newly born son, Charles III. The school in the Art League building held shows where the three children were exposed to artists and patrons as their busy parents incorporated them into their world.
The school first displayed students' and instructors' artworks. As part of the New Orleans Art League, the artists set up the exhibitions at the Delgado Museum which later became the New Orleans Museum of Art. By the 1960s the school had discontinued classes and evolved into Reinike Gallery which began showing works by prominent artists from the area.
Their three children, Audrey, Gretchen and Charles III, all pursued art careers. Upon Vera's sudden death at age 61, it fell to the younger Charles and his wife, Edna, to take charge of the gallery. They expanded the stable of artists to include painters from across the country and England. In 1987 they moved the gallery to Atlanta, first to Peachtree Road, and then, in 1992, to Miami Circle.