NEW YORK, NY.- Today Max Protetch Gallery announced that ownership of the Gallery has been transferred to Edwin Meulensteen, formerly of Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The Gallery will remain in New York, with Protetch continuing as artistic advisor and Josie Browne as director.

The Max Protetch Gallery represents established and emerging artists, including David Reed, Betty Woodman, Siah Armajani, Byron Kim, Oliver Herring, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Marjetica Potrč, Tobias Putrih, Mike Cloud, Hai Bo, Ren Jian, Tim Hyde, Chen Qiulin, Siebren Versteeg, Ann Pibal, Gao Shiqiang, Saul Chernick, Zach Harris, Sun Xun, Keita Sugiura, Katayoun Vaziri, Tun Win Aung & Wah Nu, the Estate of Richard DeVore, and the Estate of Scott Burton.

The Gallery has been at the forefront of the contemporary field for 40 years. In its early Washington years, Andy Warhol, Vito Acconci, Daniel Buren, Dan Graham, Donald Judd, On Kawara, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Brice Marden, Robert Morris, Joel Shapiro, and Lawrence Wiener were among the artists shown.

The first major gallery to exhibit architects' drawings and artifacts, Max Protetch Gallery championed a number of today's most influential figures - Zaha Hadid, John Hejduk, Daniel Libeskind, Michael Graves, Rem Koolhaas, and the late Southern visionary Samuel Mockbee and his Rural Studio among them. The Gallery has represented the estates of Frank Lloyd Wright, Luis Barragán, Buckminster Fuller and Aldo Rossi and presented drawings and models by Louis Kahn and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

After 9/11 Max Protetch Gallery responded quickly to provide the first public forum for re-envisioning and rebuilding Ground Zero. Many architects participated in the resulting exhibition, A New World Trade Center: Design Proposals, including Libeskind, Hadid, Graves, Steven Holl, Raimund Abraham, Frei Otto, Greg Lynn FORM, Morphosis and Fox & Fowle. One of the best-attended gallery exhibitions in the history of New York, it is the first and only exhibition to be acquired in its entirety by the Library of Congress.

Max Protetch Gallery played a pioneering role in introducing an entire generation of major Chinese contemporary artists to Western audiences beginning in the mid-90s, including Fang Lijun, Zhang Xiaogang, Yue Minjun, and Zhang Huan, among others. Many of these artists had their first U.S. gallery exhibitions with Max Protetch.

"This Gallery has a history of change and innovation," says Protetch. "Under the leadership of Edwin Meulensteen, I'm confident it will continue to evolve and grow."

"The Max Protetch Gallery has built a remarkable reputation for identifying and supporting visionary artists," says Meulensteen. "I look forward to working with Max and the artists to continue that tradition, while extending the Gallery's international reach." Meulensteen, active in the arts in Western & Central Europe, is a graduate of the Rotterdam School of Management. He and his wife live in Manhattan.

In September 2010, the Max Protetch Gallery will celebrate its 40th anniversary with a major retrospective exhibition.