History

The history of the San Pedro Gallery is not well documented.  We know, however, that Nik Krevitsky, a well-known and highly accomplished member of the Tucson art and performance community, converted the San Pedro Chapel to an art gallery when he owned it.  This probably occurred in the late 1960s.

Upon Nik's death in 1991 the Chapel was purchased from his estate for eventual transfer to the Old Fort Lowell Neighborhood Association.  The Association makes the chapel available as a venue for many activities including, of course, art shows.  And so San Pedro Gallery continues to be part of the Tucson art scene.

Jules Nathan

Among the art shows presented in the San Pedro Gallery were three exhibits of the work of Jules Nathan. The first two were directed by Nik and the last, in 1992, was dedicated to him.  Nathan started painting at a very late age, but his paintings are almost childlike. They depict busy and bright jungle scenes, with lions and tigers and bears and monkeys and deer and storks and swans.

Nik Krevitsky

Nik Krevitsky was a leading American artist-craftsman. In addition to his award-winning work in stitchery, he is well known in several other fields, most notably enameling on steel.  Nik conducted more than 50 one-man shows during his career and it seems likely that some of those were presented in the San Pedro Gallery.

Krevitsky’s stitcheries toured as a one-man show in 1963-64; he also participated in shows at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Chicago Art Institute.  His published works include articles and coverage in Craft Horizons, Creative Crafts, School Arts, and Art News.  He authored Batik: Art and Craft (Reinhold 1964), Stitchery: Art and Craft (Reinhold 1966), Shaped Weaving: Making Garments and Accessories with Simple Needle & Finger Weaving with Lois Ericson (Reinhold 1974). He illustrated It Happened in Chelm: A Story of the Legendary Town of Fools as retold by Florence Freedman (Shapolsky 1990).

Krevitsky was a U.S. Representative at UNESCO Institute for education, Hamburg, Germany, 1962 and Supervisor of the Arts and Crafts Exhibit at the U.S. Pavilion, International Trade Fair, Zagreb, Yugoslavia, 1962.  Nik was also Supervisor of Art for the Tucson, Arizona Public Schools.