Dayton's Gallery 12: The Minneapolis Store That Sold Warhol, Lichtenstein and Rauschenberg

In the 1960s and 1970s, the twelfth floor of the downtown Minneapolis Dayton's store showed and sold Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, Warhol and Robert Indiana. Here is who Gallery 12 sold, the prints it published, and what its label means for your piece.

SebastianCharles Auctions

Turn over a framed print from an old Minneapolis home and you might find a typed label that reads "Dayton's Gallery 12." That label means the piece was sold on the twelfth floor of the downtown Dayton's store. In the 1960s and 1970s, that floor showed and sold some of the biggest names in American art. Here is what Gallery 12 was, who it sold, and what the label means for the piece you own.

A serious gallery inside a department store

George Draper Dayton founded Dayton's in 1902 at Nicollet Avenue and Seventh Street in downtown Minneapolis. The store grew into a twelve story block, and the top floor held the Sky Room restaurant, the Oak Grill and Gallery 12. You could buy a winter coat, have lunch, and then walk into a show of brand new pop art.

The art world took it seriously. In 1968, Time described Gallery 12 as a gallery that collectors knew and respected. It was selling Tom Wesselmann nudes, with Marisol's wood sculptures priced at $8,000.

The store itself is gone now. Dayton's became Marshall Field's in 2001 and Macy's in 2006, and the downtown store closed in 2017.

The artists Gallery 12 showed and sold

The gallery's exhibition list reads like a textbook of 1960s and 1970s American art. These are shows we can confirm from the artists' own records and museum archives.

Some of what passed through that floor now sells for millions. Lichtenstein's 1966 painting Purple Range was in the 1970 New Acquisitions show, and Sotheby's lists Dayton's Gallery 12 in its ownership history. It sold at Sotheby's New York in May 2024 for $3.69 million.

Gallery 12 published prints, too

Gallery 12 didn't just sell prints. It helped make them. Rauschenberg's 1970 Currents project produced two series of large screenprints, printed at Styria Studio and co-published by Dayton's Gallery 12 and Castelli Graphics in New York. The Surface Series has 18 prints in an edition of 100, and the Features series has 26. Rauschenberg signed and dated them '70 in pencil.

Those prints have a real market. A complete set of the 18 Surface Series prints sold for $27,500 at Phillips in 2013. A single artist's proof brought $1,260 at Rago in 2023. The National Gallery of Art owns the full Features series, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art owns the large silkscreens Rauschenberg made for Gallery 12.

The gallery also printed exhibition posters. A Jasper Johns poster from Gallery 12's 1971 show regularly sells for $50 to $300. A Rauschenberg Gallery 12 poster brought $900 at Bonhams in 2026.

The Dayton family and Minnesota art

Gallery 12 grew out of a family that put money behind art. In the 1940s the Daytons committed 5% of the company's pretax profits to the community, a practice other Minnesota companies later picked up. Bruce Dayton served as a trustee of the Minneapolis Institute of Art for 73 years and gave it more than $80 million.

His brother Ken and Ken's wife Judy gave the Walker Art Center 550 works, including nearly 200 Jasper Johns prints in 1988. That gift made the Walker home to the largest collection of Johns prints in the country. We cover that side of the story in our post on the Walker Art Center and its impact on Minnesota art.

Our own Gallery 12 results

We have sold works that still carried their Gallery 12 labels. Two examples show how the label works in practice.

Both sold within estimate, and that is the lesson. The label tells you where and when the piece was bought. The artist and the object set the price. A Gallery 12 label on a Rauschenberg Currents print is a great story attached to a valuable print. The same label on a poster is a nice bonus on a poster.

What to check on your Gallery 12 piece

Read the label

Gallery 12 labels are typed. Most list an inventory number, the artist, the title, the date and the medium. That typed line is the gallery describing the piece in its own words, and it often answers the first question we ask.

Print or poster

Look at the lower margin. A signed and numbered print has a pencil signature and a number like 106/200. An exhibition poster has the artist's name and the show printed into the image and is usually unsigned. Our post on original posters versus reprints covers how to tell the difference.

Keep the label with the piece

Do not reframe the piece and throw out the old backing. If a framer has to replace it, ask them to save the label and attach it to the new backing. Take a photo of it either way.

Selling a piece from Dayton's Gallery 12

Minnesota families bought serious art at Dayton's for years, and some of it is still out there in Twin Cities homes. If you have a piece with a Gallery 12 label, send us photos of the front, the back with the label, and any signature. Sebastian personally reviews every inquiry. Our prints department handles everything from posters to blue chip editions, and you can see recent sales on our auction highlights page. Our next fine art sale is December 2, and you can request an estimate here.