The Tenth Street Studio Building, constructed in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

in 1857, was the first modern facility designed solely to serve the needs of artists. It became the center of the New York art world for the remainder of the 19th century. Situated at 51 West 10th Street between Fifth and

Sixth Avenue Sixth Avenue, also known as Avenue of the Americas, is a major thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The avenue is commercial for much of its length, and traffic runs northbound, or uptown. Sixth Avenue begins four blocks b ...

s in the

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the north, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the s ...

neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, the building was commissioned by James Boorman JohnstonJames Boorman Johnston (1822-1887) was a son of the prominent Scottish-born New York merchant John Johnston, in partnership with James Boorman (1783-1866) as Boorman & Johnston, developers of Washington Square North, and a founder of

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

; an 1831 ''Johnston Children'' group portrai
is in the inventory
of the Museum of the City of New york. and designed by

Richard Morris Hunt Richard Morris Hunt (October 31, 1827 – July 31, 1895) was an American architect of the nineteenth century and an eminent figure in the history of architecture of the United States. He helped shape New York City with his designs for the 1902 ...

. Its innovative design soon represented a national architectural prototype, and featured a domed central gallery, from which interconnected rooms radiated. Hunt's studio within the building housed the first architectural school in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Soon after its completion, the building helped to make

central to the arts in New York City, drawing artists from all over the country to work, exhibit, and sell their art. In its initial years,

Winslow Homer Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters of 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...

took a studio there, as did Edward Lamson Henry, and many of the artists of the

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. Early on, the paintings typically depicted the Hudson River Valley and the sur ...

, including

Martin Johnson Heade Martin Johnson Heade (August 11, 1819 – September 4, 1904) was an American Painting, painter known for his salt marsh Landscape art, landscapes, seascapes, and depictions of hummingbirds, often depicted with orchids, as well as lotus blossoms ...

and

Albert Bierstadt Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was no ...

. Perhaps the most famous tenant of all was

Frederic Edwin Church Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painting, landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for paintin ...

, who held a landmark single-picture exhibition of ''

The Heart of the Andes ''The Heart of the Andes'' is a large oil-on-canvas landscape painting by the American artist Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900). It depicts an idealized landscape in the South American Andes, where Church traveled on two occasions. Measuring m ...

'' in the building's central atrium. In 1879, Johnston deeded the building to his brother John Taylor Johnston, who later became the first president of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

. In that same year

William Merritt Chase William Merritt Chase (November 1, 1849October 25, 1916) was an American painter, known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later became the Parsons School of Design. ...

moved into the main gallery, and was joined in the building by Walter Shirlaw and Frederick Dielman. Chase's studio in particular represented the sophisticated taste which came to characterize the building. In 1895, Chase departed the studio, and the building subsequently lost its prominence as an art center.

Kahlil Gibran Gibran Khalil Gibran (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931), usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and Visual arts, visual artist; he was also considered a philosopher, although he himself reject ...

lived on the third story from 1911 until his death in 1931. In 1920, the building was purchased by a group of artists in order to forestall commercial takeover. From that time forward, a number of New York City artists rented studio space in the building. In 1942, the building's basement became the meeting place for the Bombshell Artists Group, an alliance of 60 modernist painters and sculptors, a number of whom had studios in the building. Henry Becket, writing in the ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates three online sites: NYPost. ...

'' newspaper on March 2, 1942, noted that "The artists meet in a cellar that they call The Bomb Shelter at 51 West 10th Street." He also stated that the Bombshell Group's "exhibition chairman" was Joseph Manfredi and the Group's first show was then on display at the Riverside Museum. In 1956, the Tenth Street Studio Building was razed to make way for an apartment building. A penthouse apartment in the subsequently constructed apartment building, 45 West 10th Street, was purchased by the actress

Julia Roberts Julia Fiona Roberts (born October 28, 1967) is an American actress. Known for her leading roles across various genres, she has received multiple accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and three Golden Globe Award ...

in 2010.

Notes

References

External links

"How one building turned Greenwich Village into an artists' Mecca"
Village Preservation, August 6, 2019 {{Coord, 40.73437, -73.99753, display=title 1857 establishments in New York (state) Buildings and structures demolished in 1956 Buildings and structures in Manhattan Commercial buildings completed in 1857 Demolished buildings and structures in Manhattan Greenwich Village