Bernard Toale opened the gallery in 1992 at 11 Newbury Street, among Boston's established art and design addresses, with a program built on contemporary work in any medium and a stated preference for artists early in their careers. In the spring of 1998 it moved to 450 Harrison Avenue in the South End — warehouse rooms that suited installation, large-format photography and multimedia, and that put the gallery at the front of what became the city's principal gallery district.
It was named Best Art Gallery in Best of Boston more than once, including 1999 and 2006. The 1999 citation credited Toale with representing many of the city's most promising younger artists — Ambreen Butt, David Hilliard, Lucy White among them — and with shows of national significance, including a posthumous exhibition of Francesca Woodman. Between exhibitions the gallery ran readings, video installations and benefit events, and Toale chaired ARTcetera 2000, the biennial auction for the AIDS Action Committee.
Doug Crocco's Head for the hills was shown here in L.A. Times, 2005, a group exhibition of artists working in Los Angeles, mounted three thousand miles from the city the title names.
Exhibitions from the final years give the range: David Ording's seven-by-ten-foot oil After in 2005; Penelope Umbrico's All the Embarrassing Books (from Home-Decor Magazines) in 2007, since acquired by the McNay Art Museum; Stephen Barker's The Archivist's Wig in early 2008; and a pairing of Laura McPhee's landscapes with Toni Pepe's staged domestic photographs that spring.
The gallery closed in 2008, one of ten in Boston that year and seven in the South End, as leases expired against a worsening economy. Toale turned from exhibiting to consulting. Joseph Carroll, who had run the gallery for five years, took over the space that summer and reopened it in September as Carroll and Sons.
Bernard Toale Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave, Boston MA 02118. bernardtoalegallery.com