‘Acquired on eBay (and from other surrogate sources)’

Through Feb. 23. Mitchell Algus, 132 Delancey Street, 2nd Floor, Manhattan; 516-639-4918; mitchellalgusgallery.com

“Acquired on eBay (and from other surrogate sources)” comes on like a magnetic cornucopia of paintings and drawings by dozens of mostly midcentury artists, many now obscure, contextualized by sundry photographs and books. It mirrors the narrowness of established taste, the fickleness of the art market and the friendships forged among artists that help them survive. The effect is alternately informative, sobering and weirdly optimistic and ineffably touching. A parting wisdom: Collecting art is less about money than about passion, curiosity and persistence. If you truly love art for itself, not for status or investment, you will find things you can afford.

Few people are better equipped to organize this show than Mitchell Algus, a longtime advocate for forgotten or overlooked artists, with an abiding interest in late Surrealism, both European and American. Many of the works were purchased by him or other lenders for not much money on eBay. Some pieces surfaced in antique stores, out-of-the-way auctions or artists’ estates. A few were artists’ gifts to or trades with Mr. Algus — once an artist himself. Note the bold abstraction by Edward Avedisian, whose 1960s canvases Mr. Algus resurrected in the 1990s.

Some names here are well known, including the artists Elaine de Kooning, Hans Bellmer and Pavel Tchelitchew; the filmmaker Hollis Frampton and the composer Virgil Thomson. Others ring few bells. These include Darrel Austin (1907-1994), who is represented by the robustly painted “Wiley Fox,” from 1970; and Karl Priebe (1914-1976), the creator of four dreamy fantasy portraits of large-eyed beauties. Yet in the mid-1940s, each artist was the subject of a Life Magazine feature. A large lacy ink drawing of a country house is by one Elie Lascaux (1888-1968), who exhibited with Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Picasso’s art dealer. Don’t miss a small enticing undated painting of onions by Mary Meigs (1917-2002), described in Mr. Algus’s checklist as “a writer, artist and L.G.B.T. standard-bearer” and the inspiration for Dolly Lamb, a frustrated artist, in Mary McCarthy’s novel “A Charmed Life.” Said book is displayed nearby with a photograph of McCarthy by Charles Henri Ford, editor of the art magazine View. And next to an image by an unknown photographer of the artist Jack Smith and the actress Maria Antoinette Rogers on the train to Coney Island hangs a fine 1965 drawing that depicts Smith’s name carved in looming rock, à la Mount Rushmore. It is by John Hawkins, about whom Mr. Algus knows nearly nothing. As of yet.

ROBERTA SMITH