Art Museum
Whitney Museum of American Art
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
Whitney Museum of American Art is an art museum in Manhattan, United States. 9 works from its collection are in this catalog, including George Bellows and Paul Cézanne.
About Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art (known informally as "The Whitney") is a modern and contemporary American art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. The institution was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), a prominent American socialite, sculptor, and art patron after whom it is named.
The Whitney focuses on collecting and preserving 20th- and 21st-century American art. 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.
Overview
The Whitney Museum of American Art is a leading institution dedicated to modern and contemporary American art, situated in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 1931, it was the first museum in New York City to focus exclusively on the work of living American artists. The museum's mission centers on championing American art from the late 19th century to the present, housing a vast collection of over 25,000 works by more than 3,600 artists.
Its holdings span painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, installation, and works on paper, reflecting the diverse and evolving landscape of American creativity.
History & Founding
The museum was founded by sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who recognized that American artists with new ideas struggled to exhibit or sell their work at the beginning of the twentieth century. She began purchasing and showing their work, eventually establishing the museum which opened on November 17, 1931, in Greenwich Village. Juliana Force served as the museum's first director.
The founding collection consisted of approximately 600 works from Whitney's personal holdings, which she continued to expand throughout her lifetime. The institution was established to support living American artists, particularly younger or emerging figures, and has maintained this focus since its inception.
Building & Architecture
The Whitney has occupied several locations since its founding. From 1966 to 2014, the museum was located in a building on Madison Avenue designed by Marcel Breuer. In 2015, the museum moved to its current location in the Meatpacking District on Gansevoort Street, adjacent to the High Line.
This new eight-story building, designed by architect Renzo Piano, spans 200,000 square feet and features expansive exhibition spaces, four large terraces, and a flexible auditorium. The design is notable for its use of natural light and provides views of the Hudson River and Greenwich Village. The building vastly increased the museum's programming space compared to its previous locations.
Collection Highlights
The Whitney's collection includes over 25,000 works by more than 3,600 artists, with deep holdings in modernism, Social Realism, Precisionism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, and Minimalism. The museum possesses the world's largest collection of paintings by Edward Hopper. Notable artists represented in the collection include Alexander Calder, Louise Nevelson, Georgia O'Keeffe, Jasper Johns, Cindy Sherman, Agnes Martin, and Brice Marden.
The collection covers all mediums, with works on paper comprising over eighty percent of the holdings. The museum also began collecting photography in 1991 and maintains a significant archive of video and installation art.
Significance & Programs
The Whitney is renowned for its biennial exhibition, established in 1932, which remains a major invitational survey of current trends in American art. The museum has been an innovator in presenting new media, including being the first New York museum to present a major exhibition of a video artist. It also operates the Whitney Independent Study Program (ISP), founded in 1968, which serves as a training ground for curators and critics.
The museum's commitment to living artists is reflected in its policy of not selling works by living artists to avoid damaging their careers. The institution has also been a pioneer in taking exhibitions beyond its walls through branch museums and digital initiatives like Artport.
Whitney Museum of American Art by the numbers
- Founded
- 1931
- Visitors / year
- 492,500
Works from Whitney Museum of American Art
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Whitney Museum of American Art
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- whitney.org
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Moments held at Whitney Museum of American Art
- Whitney Biennial Takes Its Current Form (1973) On January 10, 1973, the Whitney Museum of American Art opened Whitney Biennial 1973: Contemporary American Art, running through March 18. The museum's own archive identifies the 1973 exhibition as the start of the. The 1973 format helped make the Whitney Biennial a recurring barometer of contemporary American art.
- Abstract Painting in America opens at the Whitney (1935) On February 12, 1935, the Whitney Museum of American Art opened Abstract Painting in America, also described as the Exhibition of American Abstract Painting. The show ran through March 22 and gathered work by 65. The exhibition helped create the conditions for a durable American abstract-art advocacy group.
- Whitney Biennial 2014 Opens (2014) The 2014 Whitney Biennial opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art on March 7. Curated by Stuart Comer, Anthony Elms, and Michelle Grabner, it adopted an unusual structure in which three outside curators each. It closed the Breuer-building era of the Whitney Biennial before the museum's downtown relocation.
- Whitney Biennial 2017 opens (2017) On March 17, 2017, the Whitney Museum of American Art opened Whitney Biennial 2017, the seventy-eighth installment of its long-running survey of American art. Co-curated by Christopher Y. Lew and Mia Locks, it featured. The exhibition sharpened public debate over who may represent traumatic histories inside major art institutions.
- Whitney Biennial Even Better Than the Real Thing Opens (2024) The 2024 Whitney Biennial, Even Better Than the Real Thing, opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art on March 20, 2024, and ran through August 11. The Whitney described it as the eighty-first edition of the. It marked a major institutional survey of art after the mainstream arrival of generative AI and renewed debates over embodiment.
- 22 Realists opens at the Whitney (1970) The Whitney Museum of American Art opened 22 Realists on February 10, 1970, with the exhibition continuing to March 29. Curated by James K. Monte, it assembled painters associated with renewed figurative and realist. It gave museum visibility to several artists who shaped later debates around Photorealism and postwar figuration.
Museums near Whitney Museum of American Art
- Art Museum National Academy of Design Manhattan, United States
- Art Museum Museum of Modern Art Manhattan, United States
- Art Museum The Frick Collection Manhattan, United States
- Art Museum Metropolitan Museum of Art Manhattan, United States
- Art Museum Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Manhattan, United States
- Art Museum Neue Galerie Manhattan, United States
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