established in 1845

James E McClees, founder of McClees Galleries, was born in 1821 in Chester City, Pennsylvania. Trained in Philadelphia as a daguerreotypist, McClees was among the first to experiment with the art of paper photography. In partnership with Lafyette Germon (1823–1878), he improved greatly on what was known as the "Whipple" process, named after the Boston photographer John A. Whipple, who originally owned the American patent for making paper prints from glass negatives (crystalotypes). He began his career in 1844 working as a photographer for M. P. Simmons. In 1845 he opened his first daugerrian shop 80 Walnut Street in Philadelphia. In 1853 McClees purchased Whipple’s patent .

By the late 1850s, McClees & Co. was a thriving business. Dubbed “The Philadelphia Photographic Emporium".  In 1867 James McClees becaman art dealer and collector of oil paintings. Eventually, his son took over the gallery and ran it until his retirement in 1920.

NOTABLE EXHIBITIONS

1916: “Philadelphia’s First Exhibition of Advanced Modern Art"

1924:  Mary Cassatt

1931:  Mary Cassatt

1932:  French Art

McClees was the first gallery in America to represent Mary Cassatt while she lived in France.  She participated in exhibits in 1923, 1924, 1931, and in an exhibition of French Art in April, 1932.  The exhibition covered three generations of French artists. It included Rococo, Claude Jean Baptiste Horn, Peirre Bonnard, Andre Dunoyer de Segozac,Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cezanne, Renoir, Van Gogh and Seurat.

1933 Walter Baum

The Pennsylvania Impressionist, Walter Emerson Baum had his first one man show at the gallery. On view were 38 works, mostly landscapes that he painted in the preceding three years. He received good reviews from the Philadelphia papers. The Inquirer referred to him as the “artist, critic, and arch-apostle in his art of the country side of Bucks, Montgomery, Berks and Lehigh counties where in truth much simple homely beauty is to be found."