The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an
art museum
An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. Although primarily co ...
in the
Meatpacking District and
West Village neighborhoods of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. It was founded in 1930 by
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), a wealthy and prominent American socialite, sculptor, and art patron after whom it is named.
The Whitney focuses on 20th- and 21st-century
American art
Visual art of the United States or American art is visual art made in the United States or by U.S. artists. Before colonization there were many flourishing traditions of Native American art, and where the Spanish colonized Spanish Colonial arc ...
. Its permanent collection, spanning the late-19th century to the present, comprises more than 25,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, films, videos, and artifacts of
new media by more than 3,500 artists. It places particular emphasis on exhibiting the work of living artists as well as maintaining an extensive permanent collection of important pieces from the first half of the last century. The museum's Annual and
Biennial exhibitions have long been a venue for younger and lesser-known artists whose work is showcased there.
From 1966 to 2014, the Whitney was at
945 Madison Avenue on Manhattan's
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the we ...
in a building designed by
Marcel Breuer and Hamilton P. Smith. The museum closed in October 2014 to relocate to its current building, which was designed by
Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano (; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (2 ...
at 99
Gansevoort Street Gansevoort may refer to any one of the following:
__NOTOC__ People
*Guert Gansevoort (1812–1868), US Navy officer
* Harmen Harmense Gansevoort (ca. 1634–1709), early American settler, landowner and beer brewer
* Leonard Gansevoort (1751–1810) ...
and opened on May 1, 2015.
History
Early years
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the museum's namesake and founder, was a well-regarded sculptor and serious art collector. As a patron of the arts, she began acquiring art in 1905, and had already achieved some success with the Whitney Studio and Whitney Studio Club, New York–based exhibition spaces she operated from 1914 to 1928 to promote the works of ''avant garde'' and unrecognized American artists. Whitney favored the radical art of the American artists of the
Ashcan School such as
John French Sloan
John French Sloan (August 2, 1871 – September 7, 1951) was an American painter and etcher. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Ashcan school of American art. He was also a member of the group known as The Eight. He is best known ...
,
George Luks
George Benjamin Luks (August 13, 1867 – October 29, 1933) was an American artist, identified with the aggressively realistic Ashcan School of American painting.
After travelling and studying in Europe, Luks worked as a newspaper illustrator a ...
, and
Everett Shinn, as well as others such as
Edward Hopper,
Stuart Davis,
Charles Demuth,
Charles Sheeler, and
Max Weber
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas p ...
.
With the aid of her assistant,
Juliana R. Force
Juliana R. Force (December 25, 1876August 28, 1948) was an American art museum administrator and director. Force started her career as a collector of folk art and as a secretary to socialite art collectors. She initiated the first display of ...
, Whitney collected nearly 700 works of American art. In 1929, she offered to donate over 500 to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, but the museum declined the gift. This, along with the apparent preference for European
modernism
Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
at the recently opened
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...
, led Whitney to start her own museum, exclusively for American art, in 1929.
Whitney Library archives from 1928 reveal that during this time, the Studio Club used the gallery space of
Wilhelmina Weber Furlong
Wilhelmina Weber Furlong (1878–1962) was a German American artist and teacher.The Biography of Wilhelmina Weber Furlong: The Treasured Collection of Golden Heart Farm by Clint B. Weber,
Among America's earliest avant-garde elite modernist p ...
of the Art Students League to exhibit traveling shows featuring modernist work. The Whitney Museum of American Art was founded in 1930; at this time architect Noel L. Miller was converting three row houses on
West 8th Street in
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
—one of which,
8 West 8th Street had been the location of the Studio Club—to be the museum's home, as well as a residence for Whitney.
[, p.54] The new museum opened in 1931. Force became the museum's first director, and under her guidance, it concentrated on displaying the works of new and contemporary American artists.
In 1954, the museum left its original location
and moved to a small structure on 54th Street connected to and behind the Museum of Modern Art on 53rd Street. On April 15, 1958, a fire on MOMA's second floor that killed one person forced the evacuation of paintings and staff on MOMA's upper floors to the Whitney. Among the paintings evacuated was ''
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
''A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte'' (french: Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte) was painted from 1884 to 1886 and is Georges Seurat's most famous work. A leading example of pointillist technique, executed o ...
'', which was on loan from the
Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
.
Move to the Upper East Side
In 1961, the Whitney began seeking a site for a larger building. In 1966, it settled at the southeast corner of
Madison Avenue
Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Str ...
and 75th Street on
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
's
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the we ...
.
The building, planned and built 1963–1966 by
Marcel Breuer and Hamilton P. Smith in a distinctively modern style, is easily distinguished from the neighboring townhouses by its staircase façade made of granite stones and its trapezoidal windows. In 1967,
Mauricio Lasansky showed "The Nazi Drawings". The exhibition traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, where it appeared with shows by
Louise Nevelson and
Andrew Wyeth
Andrew Newell Wyeth ( ; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was an American visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century.
In his ...
as the first exhibits in the new museum.
The institution grappled with space problems for decades.
In 1967, the museum opened a satellite space called the Art Resources Center (ARC). Originally intended to be located in the South Bronx, the ARC opened on Cherry Street on the Lower East Side. From 1973 to 1983, the Whitney operated a branch at
55 Water Street, a building owned by
Harold Uris, who gave the museum a lease for $1 a year. In 1983,
Philip Morris International installed a Whitney branch in the lobby of its Park Avenue headquarters. In 1981, the museum opened an exhibition space in
Stamford, Connecticut
Stamford () is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut, outside of Manhattan. It is Connecticut's second-most populous city, behind Bridgeport. With a population of 135,470, Stamford passed Hartford and New Haven in population as of the 202 ...
, housed at
Champion International Champion International was a large paper and wood products producer based since 1980 in Stamford, Connecticut. It was acquired by International Paper in 2000.
From 1893 it had been based in Hamilton, Ohio, expanding to plants in Texas and Western N ...
.
In the late 1980s, the Whitney entered into arrangements with Park Tower Realty,
IBM, and
the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, setting up satellite museums with rotating exhibitions in their buildings' lobbies.
Each museum had its own director, with all plans approved by a Whitney committee.
The institution attempted to expand its landmark building in 1978, commissioning UK architects
Derek Walker and
Norman Foster to design a tall tower alongside it, the first of several proposals from leading architects, but each time, the effort was abandoned, because of the cost, the design, or both.
To secure additional space for the museum's collections, then-director
Thomas N. Armstrong III
Thomas N. Armstrong III (July 30, 1932, Portsmouth, Virginia – June 20, 2011, Manhattan) was an American museum curator who was director emeritus of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum (1968–1971),
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine ...
developed plans for a 10-story, $37.5 million addition to the main building. The proposed addition, designed by
Michael Graves and announced in 1985, drew immediate opposition. Graves had proposed demolishing the flanking brownstones down to the
East 74th Street corner for a complementary addition. The project gradually lost the support of the museum's trustees, and the plans were dropped in 1989. Between 1995 and 1998, the building underwent a renovation and expansion by
Richard Gluckman. In 2001,
Rem Koolhaas was commissioned to submit two designs for a $200 million expansion. Those plans were dropped in 2003, causing director Maxwell L. Anderson to resign. New York restaurateur
Danny Meyer opened Untitled, a restaurant in the museum, in March 2011. The space was designed by the
Rockwell Group.
Move downtown
The Whitney developed a new main building, designed by
Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano (; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (2 ...
, in the
West Village and
Meatpacking District in
lower Manhattan. The new museum, at the intersection of Gansevoort and
Washington Streets, was built on a previously city-owned site and marks the southern entrance to the
High Line park.
Construction began in 2010 and was completed in 2015.
It cost $422 million. Robert Silman Associates was the structural engineer;
Jaros, Baum & Bolles provided MEP services;
Ove Arup & Partners was the lighting/daylighting engineer; and
Turner Construction LLC served as construction manager.
The new structure spans and eight stories that include the city's largest column-free art gallery spaces, an education center, theater, a conservation laboratory, and a library and reading rooms. Two of the floors are fully devoted to the museum's permanent collection. The only permanent artwork commissioned for the site—its four main elevators—were conceived by
Richard Artschwager. The new building's collection comprises over 600 works by over 400 artists.
Observation decks on the floors five through eight are linked by an outdoor staircase.
The new building is much more expansive and open than the old ones. As one ''New York Times'' review described the building:
The museum needed to raise $760 million for the building and its endowment. In May 2011, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
announced it had entered into an agreement to occupy the Madison Avenue building for at least eight years starting in 2015, easing the Whitney's burden of having to finance two large museum spaces.
The occupation of the old space was later postponed to 2016.
After an April 30, 2015, ceremonial ribbon-cutting attended by
Michelle Obama and
Bill de Blasio,
the new building opened on May 1, 2015.
Collection
The museum displays
painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...
s,
drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayo ...
s,
prints,
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...
s,
installation art
Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...
, video, and
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...
.
The original 600 works in the permanent collection grew to about 1,300 with the opening of the second building in 1954. This number grew to around 2,000 following its move to the Breuer building on Madison Avenue in 1966. It began collecting photography in 1991. Today, spanning the late 19th century to the present, the collection contains more than 25,000 artworks by upwards of 3,500 artists. Artists represented include
Josef Albers,
Joe Andoe,
Edmund Archer,
Donald Baechler,
Thomas Hart Benton,
Lucile Blanch
Lucile Esma Lundquist Blanch (December 31, 1895 – October 31, 1981) was an American artist, art educator, and Guggenheim Fellow. She was noted for the murals she created for the U.S. Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts during the Great ...
,
Jonathan Borofsky,
Louise Bourgeois,
Sonia Gordon Brown
Sonia Gordon Brown (russian: Соня Гордон Браун; January 11, 1890–c. 1965) was a Russian-American sculptor.
Sonia Gordon Brown, née Sonia F. Rosental, was born in Moscow, Russia on January 11, 1890. She studied in Russia, with ...
,
Charles Burchfield,
Alexander Calder,
Suzanne Caporael Suzanne Caporael (born 1949) is an American artist. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the High Museum of Art
The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is th ...
,
Norman Carton
Norman Carton (January 7, 1908 – February 14, 1980) was an American artist and educator known for abstract expressionist art. He was born in the Ukraine region of Imperial Russia and moved to the United States in 1922 where he spent most of hi ...
,
Carolina Caycedo
Carolina Caycedo (born 1978, in London, United Kingdom) is a multimedia artist based in Los Angeles.
Born to Colombian parents, Caycedo's art practice is based on environmental research focusing on the future of shared resources, environmenta ...
,
Ching Ho Cheng
Ching Ho Cheng (December 26, 1946 – May 25, 1989) was a contemporary artist who lived and painted in New York City during the 1970s and 1980s. His work consists of four distinct periods: Psychedelics, Gouache, Torn Works and the Alchemical Serie ...
,
Talia Chetrit,
Ann Craven,
Anna Craycroft,
Dan Christensen
Dan Christensen, (October 6, 1942 – January 20, 2007) was an American abstract painter
He is best known for paintings that relate to Lyrical Abstraction, Color field painting, and Abstract expressionism.
Christensen was born in Cozad, ...
,
Greg Colson
Greg Colson (born April 23, 1956) is an American artist best known for works that straddle the line between painting and sculpture that address concepts of efficiency and order. Using scavenged materials, Colson allows the physicality of his ma ...
,
Susan Crocker
Susan Crocker (born 1940) is an American photographer. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Museum of Contemporary Photogr ...
,
Ronald Davis,
Stuart Davis,
Mira Dancy,
Lindsey Decker,
Martha Diamond,
Richard Diebenkorn,
Daniella Dooling
Daniella Dooling (born 1967) is an American artist. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
References
External links
Official website
Living people
1967 birt ...
,
Arthur Dove,
Loretta Dunkelman
Loretta Dunkelman, (born 1937 in Paterson, NJ) is an American artist based in New York City, NY. She studied at what is now Rutgers University, but was the New Jersey College for Women and later the Doulgass Residential College, where she completed ...
,
William Eggleston,
Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...
,
Georgia O'Keeffe,
Arshile Gorky,
Keith Haring,
Grace Hartigan,
Marsden Hartley,
Robert Henri,
Carmen Herrera,
Eva Hesse,
Hans Hofmann,
Edward Hopper,
Richard Hunt,
Jasper Johns,
Corita Kent
Corita Kent (November 20, 1918 – September 18, 1986), born Frances Elizabeth Kent and also known as Sister Mary Corita Kent, was an American artist, designer and educator, and former religious sister. Key themes in her work included Christian ...
,
Franz Kline,
Terence Koh
Terence Koh (born 1977 in Beijing, China ) is a Canadian artist who has also worked under the alias "asianpunkboy". The artist's work spans a range of media, including drawing, sculpture, video, performance, and the internet. Originally workin ...
,
Willem de Kooning,
Lee Krasner,
Ronnie Landfield
Ronnie Landfield (born January 9, 1947) is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction (related to Postminimalism, Color Field painting, and ...
,
John Marin
John Marin (December 23, 1870 – October 2, 1953) was an early American modernist artist. He is known for his abstract landscapes and watercolors.
Biography
Marin was born in Rutherford, New Jersey. His mother died nine days after his birth ...
,
Knox Martin
Knox Martin (February 12, 1923 – May 15, 2022) was an American painter, sculptor, and muralist.
Born in Barranquilla, Colombia, he studied at the Art Students League of New York from 1946 until 1950. He was one of the leading members of the N ...
,
John McCracken,
John McLaughlin,
Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of the New York School, which also inc ...
,
Bruce Nauman,
Louise Nevelson,
Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense o ...
,
Kenneth Noland
Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was though ...
,
Paul Pfeiffer,
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionism, abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splas ...
,
Larry Poons
Lawrence M. "Larry" Poons (born October 1, 1937) is an American abstract painter. Poons was born in Tokyo, Japan, and studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music, with the intent of becoming a professional musician. After ...
,
Maurice Prendergast,
Kenneth Price,
Robert Rauschenberg,
Man Ray
Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...
,
Mark Rothko,
Morgan Russell
Morgan Russell (January 25, 1886 – May 29, 1953) was a modern American artist. With Stanton Macdonald-Wright, he was the founder of Synchromism, a provocative style of abstract painting that dates from 1912 to the 1920s. Russell's "synchromie ...
,
Albert Pinkham Ryder
Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, 1847 – March 28, 1917) was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality. While his art shared an emphasis on subtle variations of ...
,
Cindy Sherman,
John Sloan,
Frank Stella,
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
, and hundreds of others.
Every two years, the museum hosts the
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition ...
, an international art show which displays many lesser-known artists new to the American art scene. It has displayed works by many notable artists, and has featured unconventional works, such as a 1976 exhibit of live
body builder
Bodybuilding is the use of progressive resistance exercise to control and develop one's muscles (muscle building) by muscle hypertrophy for aesthetic purposes. It is distinct from similar activities such as powerlifting because it focuses o ...
s, featuring
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian and American actor, film producer, businessman, retired professional bodybuilder and politician who served as the 38th governor of California between 2003 and 2011. ''Time'' ...
.
In addition to its traditional collection, the Whitney has a website, Artport, that features "Net Art" that changes regularly. The Whitney will not sell any work by a living artist because it could damage that artist's career, but it will trade a living artist's work for another piece by the same artist.
Gallery
Library
The Frances Mulhall Achilles Library is a research library originally built on the collections of books and papers of founder Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and the Whitney Museum's first director, Juliana Force. The library operates in the West Chelsea area of New York City.
It contains Special Collections and the Whitney Museum Archives. The archives contain the Institutional Archives, Research Collections, and Manuscript Collections. The Special Collections consist of artists' books, portfolios, photographs, titles in the Whitney Fellows Artist and Writers Series (1982–2001), posters, and valuable ephemera that relate to the permanent collection. The Institutional Archives include exhibition records, photographs, curatorial research notes, artist's correspondence, audio and video recordings, and trustees' papers from 1912 to the present.
Highlights:
*
Arshile Gorky research collection, 1920s–1990s
*
Edward Hopper research collection, 1894–2000
Books and materials in the library can be accessed in the museum's database.
Independent Study Program
The Whitney Independent Study Program (ISP) was founded in 1968 by Ron Clark. The Whitney ISP has helped start the careers of artists, critics, and curators including
Jenny Holzer,
Andrea Fraser
Andrea Rose Fraser (born 1965) is a performance artist, mainly known for her work in the area of Institutional Critique. Fraser is based in New York and Los Angeles and is currently Department Head and Professor of Interdisciplinary Studio of the ...
,
Julian Schnabel,
Kathryn Bigelow,
Roberta Smith, and
Félix González-Torres
Félix González-Torres (November 26, 1957 – January 9, 1996) was a Cuban-born American visual artist. González-Torres's openly gay sexual orientation was influential in his work as an artist. González-Torres was known for his minimal inst ...
, as well as many other well-known cultural producers. The program includes both art history and studio programs. Each year, the ISP selects 14 students for the Studio Program (artists), four for the Curatorial Program (curators) and six for the Critical Studies Program (researchers). It is a one-year program that includes both visiting and hired artists, art historians, and critics, and involves the reading of theory. Clark remains its director.
Notable alumni
*
Jennifer Allora – 1998–1999
*
Richard Armstrong - 1974
*
Ashley Bickerton – 1982
*
Kathryn Bigelow – 1971
*
Kavin Buck Kavin (/kəvɪn/)(Tamil. கவின் or English. /ˈkɛvɪn/) ) is a unisex given name, which is Tamil/English for "beauty", "grace", "fairness" or "comeliness". The name Kavin may refer to:
People
* Kavinn (born 1984), Jamaican football playe ...
– 1989-1990
*
Moyra Davey
Moyra Davey (born 1958) is an artist based in New York City. Davey works across photography, video, and writing.
Early life
Moyra Davey was born in 1958 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She grew up in Montreal, where she studied photography and ...
– 1989
*
Mark Dion – 1985
*
Andrea Fraser
Andrea Rose Fraser (born 1965) is a performance artist, mainly known for her work in the area of Institutional Critique. Fraser is based in New York and Los Angeles and is currently Department Head and Professor of Interdisciplinary Studio of the ...
– 1986
*
LaToya Ruby Frazier
LaToya Ruby Frazier (born 1982) is an American artist and professor of photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. From Braddock, Pennsylvania, Frazier began photographing her family and hometown at the age of 16, revising the socia ...
– 2010–2011
*
Andrea Geyer – 1999–2000
*
Ken Gonzales-Day
Ken Gonzales-Day (born 1964) is a Los Angeles-based conceptual art, conceptual artist best known for interdisciplinary projects that examine the historical construction of race, identity, and systems of representation including lynching photogra ...
– 1992
*
Félix González-Torres
Félix González-Torres (November 26, 1957 – January 9, 1996) was a Cuban-born American visual artist. González-Torres's openly gay sexual orientation was influential in his work as an artist. González-Torres was known for his minimal inst ...
– 1980, 1983
*
Renée Green
Renée Green (born October 25, 1959) is an American artist, writer, and filmmaker. Her pluralistic practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, architecture, photography, prints, video, film, websites, and sound, which normally conv ...
– 1989
*
Sharon Hayes – 1999–2000
*
Heather Hart – 2008
*
Jenny Holzer – 1976
*
Ashley Hunt
Ashley Hunt (born April 3, 1970 in Los Angeles) is an American artist, activist, writer and educator, primarily known for his photographic and video works on the American prison system, mass incarceration and the prison abolition movement. Hunt ...
– 1999–2000
*
Ryan Humphrey
Ryan Ashley Humphrey (born July 24, 1979) is a former American professional basketball player, at the power forward position. Humphrey is currently an assistant basketball coach at The University of Oklahoma. Previously he was a coach at Notr ...
– 2005–2006
*
Mary Kelly – 1987
*
Glenn Ligon – 1985
*
Richard Marshall - 1974
*
John Miller – 1977
*
Meleko Mokgosi
Meleko Mokgosi (born 1981) is an artist and associate professor of painting and drawing at the School of Art at Yale University. His work includes large-scale paintings that explore themes of colonialism, democracy, nationalism, and life in South ...
– 2007–2008
*
Sarah Morris – 1989–1990
*
Paul Pfeiffer – 1997–1998
*
Sarah Pirozek
Sarah Pirozek is a New York-based British film producer, director, and writer. She has directed television commercials, a documentary feature, has produced and directed feature films, and developed TV series. Her most recent project is #LIKE a Noir ...
– 1987–1988
*
Bettina Pousttchi – 1999–2000
*
Carissa Rodriguez
Carissa Rodriguez (born 1970) is an American artist who lives and works in New York City.
Artistic practice
Rodriguez' work investigates the relationship of the material and social conditions through which art is produced, reproduced, and consum ...
– 2001
*
Emily Roysdon – 2000–2001
*
Jayce Salloum
Jayce Salloum (born 1958) is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist.
Early life
A grandson of Syrian immigrants from what is now Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, he was born and raised in Kelowna and since 1997 has been based in Vancouver. He earned a BFA de ...
— 1988
*
Julian Schnabel – 1973
*
Katharina Sieverding
Katharina Sieverding (born 16 November 1944) is a German photographer known for her self-portraiture. Sieverding lives and works in Berlin and Düsseldorf. She is a professor emeritus at the University of the Arts, Berlin.
Early life and educat ...
– 1976
*
Roberta Smith – 1969
*
Emily Sundblad – 2005–2006
*
Rirkrit Tiravanija – 1986
*
Oscar Tuazon
Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to:
People
* Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms.
* Oscar (Irish mythology), ...
– 2001–2003
*
Julia Wachtel
Julia Wachtel (; born 1956) is a contemporary American painter. Wachtel's early work included mixed media installation, now primarily working as a painter. Wachtel is often associated with The Pictures Generation artists.
Biography
Wachtel atten ...
— 1979
*
Roger Welch
William Roger Welch (February 10, 1946) is an American conceptual artist, installation artist and video artist.
Biography
Roger Welch was born in Westfield, New Jersey in 1946 and graduated from Westfield High School in 1964.
He received a schol ...
– 1970–1971
*
Cameron Martin – 1996
Governance
Funding
As of March 2011, the Whitney's endowment was $207 million; the museum expected to raise $625 million from its capital campaign by 2015.
[Sarah Frier and Michelle Kaske (July 13, 2011)]
NYC’s Whitney Museum Pares Yield on Doubled Demand: Muni Credit
'' Bloomberg''. As of June 2016, the endowment had grown to $308 million.
Historically, the operating performance has been essentially breakeven. The museum restricts the use of its endowment fund for yearly operating expenses to 5% of the fund's value.
The Whitney has historically depended on private collectors and donors for acquisitions of new art.
In 2008,
Leonard A. Lauder
Leonard Alan Lauder (born March 19, 1933) is an American billionaire, philanthropist, art collector. He and his brother, Ronald Lauder, are the sole heirs to the Estée Lauder Companies cosmetics fortune, founded by their parents, Estée Laude ...
gave the museum $131 million, the biggest donation in the Whitney's history.
Donations for new purchases dropped to $1.3 million in 2010 from $2.7 million in 2006.
Directors
The museum's director is
Adam D. Weinberg (since 2003). Former directors include
Maxwell L. Anderson
Maxwell L. Anderson (born May 1, 1956) is an American art historian, museum director, author, and non-profit executive, who currently serves as President of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation. Anderson served as director of the Indianapolis Museum o ...
(1998–2003),
David A. Ross
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
(1991–1997),
Thomas Armstrong III (1974–1990), and
Juliana Rieser Force (1931–1948).
Board of Trustees
For years, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney supported the museum single-handedly, as did her daughter,
Flora Whitney Miller, after her, and until 1961, its board was largely family-run. Flora Payne Whitney served as a museum trustee, then as vice president. From 1942 to 1974, she was the museum's president and chair, after which she served as honorary chair until her death in 1986. Her daughter
Flora Miller Biddle served as president until 1995. Her book ''The Whitney Women and the Museum They Made'' was published in 1999.
In 1961, the need for outside support finally forced the board to add outside trustees, including bankers
Roy Neuberger
Roy Rothschild Neuberger (July 21, 1903 – December 24, 2010) was an American financier who contributed money to raise public awareness of modern art through his acquisition of pieces he deemed worthy. He was a co-founder of the investment firm ...
and
Arthur Altschul.
David Solinger became the Whitney's first outside president in 1966.
*
Leonard A. Lauder
Leonard Alan Lauder (born March 19, 1933) is an American billionaire, philanthropist, art collector. He and his brother, Ronald Lauder, are the sole heirs to the Estée Lauder Companies cosmetics fortune, founded by their parents, Estée Laude ...
, Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees
* Flora Miller Biddle, Honorary Chairman of the Board of Trustees
* Robert J. Hurst, Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees
* Brooke Garber Neidich, Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees
*
Neil Bluhm, President of the Board of Trustees
*
Adam D. Weinberg, Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney
* John Stanley, Chief Operating Officer
Criticism
The Board of Trustees has come under criticism since November 2018 by groups including
Decolonize This Place
Decolonize This Place is a movement based in New York City that organizes around Indigenous rights, black liberation, Palestinian nationalism, de-gentrification, and economic inequality. Their actions often take place at museums and cultural i ...
, the
Chinatown Art Brigade Chinatown Art Brigade (CAB) is a cultural collective of artists, media makers and activists creating art and media to advance social justice. Their work focuses on the belief that "collaboration with and accountability to those communities that are ...
, and
W.A.G.E., for vice chair Warren B. Kanders' ownership of the company
Safariland
Safariland, LLC is a United States-based manufacturer of personal, and other equipment focused on the law enforcement, public safety, military, and recreational markets. It was formerly a division of the United Kingdom-based defense and aerospace ...
, which manufactured tear gas used against the
late-2018 migrant caravans; 120 scholars and critics published an open letter to the Whitney Museum asking for the removal of Kanders from the museum board; additional signatories after the letter's initial posting included almost 50 artists who have been selected for the 2019 Whitney Biennial. A series of nine weeks of protest by Decolonize This Place highlighted the use of Safariland weapons against protestors and others in Palestine and other places.
On July 17, 2019, calls for Kanders's resignation were renewed following Artforum's publication of an essay, "The Tear Gas Biennial", by
Hannah Black, Ciarán Finlayson, and Tobi Haslett. On July 19, four artists (
Korakrit Arunanondchai,
Meriem Bennani
Meriem Bennani (born 1988) is a Moroccan artist currently based in New York.
Biography
Bennani was born and raised in Rabat, Morocco. She earned a BFA from The Cooper Union in 2012, and an MFA from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts D ...
,
Nicole Eisenman, and
Nicholas Galanin) published a letter, also in Artforum, asking their work to be withdrawn from the exhibition. (The first artist to withdraw was
Michael Rakowitz
Michael Rakowitz ( ar, مايكل راكويتز; born Long Island, New York, 22 October 1973) is an Iraqi-American artist living and working in Chicago. He is best known for his conceptual art shown in non-gallery contexts.
Rakowitz is Professor ...
, who withdrew his work before the Biennial opened.) A day later, a second wave of artists (Eddie Arroyo,
Christine Sun Kim
Christine Sun Kim (born 1980) is an American sound artist based in Berlin. Working predominantly in drawing, performance, and video, Kim's practice considers how sound operates in society. Musical notation, written language, American Sign Lang ...
,
Agustina Woodgate, and
Forensic Architecture
Forensic Architecture is a multidisciplinary research group based at Goldsmiths, University of London that uses architectural techniques and technologies to investigate cases of state violence and violations of human rights around the world. The ...
) also withdrew.
On July 25, 2019, Warren B. Kanders announced his resignation from the Board of Trustees of the Whitney Museum. Kanders cited no wish to play a role in the museum's demise and urged fellow trustees to step up and assume leadership of the Whitney.
See also
*
Whitney Museum of American Art (original building)
__NOTOC__
The Whitney Museum of American Art original building is a collection of three 1838 rowhouses located at 8–12 West 8th Street between Fifth Avenue and MacDougal Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. ...
*
List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City
*
List of Whitney Biennial artists
*
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition ...
*
The Catalog Committee
The Catalog Committee, or The Catalog Committee of Artists Meeting for Cultural Change (AMCC), was a group formed in 1975 to protest against the Whitney Museum of American Art's bicentennial exhibition. The Committee consisted of fifteen artists a ...
References
; Citations
External links
*
Whitney Museum LibraryArtport: The Whitney Museum Portal to Net ArtConservation Lab InteriorsWhitney Museumwithin
Google Arts & Culture
Google Arts & Culture (formerly Google Art Project) is an online platform of high-resolution images and videos of artworks and cultural artifacts from partner cultural organizations throughout the world.
It utilizes high-resolution image technol ...
*
{{Authority control
Art museums established in 1931
Buildings and structures completed in 1966
Museums of American art
Art museums and galleries in New York City
Museums in Manhattan
Modern art museums in the United States
Meatpacking District, Manhattan
1931 establishments in New York City
Art museums established in 2015
Renzo Piano buildings
Modernist architecture in New York City
Contemporary art galleries in the United States