Richard Timperio, an urban contemporary art pioneer, opened Sideshow Gallery when the neighborhood was dangerous and desolate. “I opened the first incarnation of Sideshow as an experiment in 1994 in a coffee shop on Bedford Avenue. At that time, the main event was across the river. There was no place in the neighborhood for people to congregate and exchange ideas. Sideshow provided a stage for unseen work.”

The artist-run space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn rapidly gained a following and soon moved across the street to an 11-foot-wide storefront. Since September of 2000 Sideshow Gallery has resided at 319 Bedford Avenue, the Champs Élysées of Williamsburg between South 2nd and South 3rd Streets. Now highly respected and one of the largest private exhibition spaces in Brooklyn, the gallery has remained committed to the concept of artist/founder Richard Timperio’s vision: "to provide a forum for all art that attains a high level of quality and embodies integrity, regardless of style or approach. A place where the art itself is the only thing that matters.” 

Timperio is recognized as a visionary gallerist with an ability to find visually and conceptually compelling work along with the experience and energy to promote the artists he shows. Owing to the demands of that process, Timperio has always maintained a strong career as an abstract painter, only a small fraction of gallerists successfully lead dual lives managing a gallery while creating works of art themselves.

With Richard Timperio at the helm as a leading authority on all forms of Abstract and Contemporary Art, Sideshow Gallery continues to show works by emerging artists, as well as an impressive line-up of prestigious, established artists, such as Chris Martin, Jonas Mekas, Larry Poons, Thornton Willis, Dan Christensen, Richard Mock, TODT, Robert C. Morgan, Robert Murray, Tadasky and many others. The gallery hosts traveling exhibitions from around the US and from international institutions as well.

Early in his career, Timperio worked as an illustrator for The New York Times and as art director for the TV show Showtime at the Apollo.