The BONFOEY GALLERY opened for business in 1893 in the Mayer-Marks building on Erie Street (present-day East Ninth Street). For more than 120 years, Bonfoey has provided custom art framing and other services in Cleveland. As the result of a series of fires, Bonfoey relocated several times during those years. Its present location is on EUCLID AVE. between Playhouse Square and the campus of Cleveland State University.
The business was founded by Asher and Della Bonfoey. Asher Darwin Bonfoey, a violinist for the Cleveland Philharmonic, was born Oct. 13, 1867 in Schoolcraft, Michigan, a son of Anson and Mary (Hanks) Bonfoey. In Lansing, Michigan, in1892, Asher Bonfoey married Della Frances Archer. She was born Feb. 24, 1866, in Monroe, Michigan, a daughter of Henry and Anna (Evans) Archer. Asher Bonfoey died Oct. 3, 1953, in SHAKER HEIGHTS. Della Bonfoey died in 1940 in Prescott, Arizona. Both are buried at LAKE VIEW CEMETERY.
The Bonfoeys began crafting frames as a hobby, but quickly assembled a clientele that included such notables as JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER and Henry Ford. Asher Bonfoey served as the company's president, treasurer and general manager. Della Bonfoey served as vice president and assistant secretary. In 1928, the Bonfoeys hired George Moore, who had been an accountant for Ohio Bell. Moore was born in 1905 in Hamilton, North Dakota, and married, in Cleveland, in 1929, Winifred A. Lewis, who was born in 1905 in Cleveland, a daughter of Marvin and Alcyone (Bissell) Lewis. Moore purchased the company in 1938. His son, Richard Moore, became president of the company in 1971, and expanded the company's activities and began exhibiting paintings in its gallery. George Moore died in 1993. Richard Moore continued as president as of 2014.