From its beginnings in 1968 as a struggling commercial art dealership located in a Euclid Avenue storefront, the New Gallery had been on the cutting edge of Cleveland’s art scene, exhibiting (often for the first time locally) the works of serious contemporary artists such as Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein. In 1974, the gallery’s co-founder, Marjorie Talalay, decided to turn the gallery into a nonprofit organization with the added mission of contemporary art education. The following year, the New Gallery received the first of a series of Cleveland Foundation grants that supported the venture’s evolution over 30 years into MOCA Cleveland, recognized nationally and internationally for its vital exhibitions and public programs. MOCA’s dynamic new University Circle building is the first in America to be designed by acclaimed Iranian architect Farshid Moussavi.