Whitney Museum

Whitney Museum
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum located in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. The institution was originally 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. It places particular emphasis on exhibiting the work of living artists as well as maintaining institutional archives of historical documents pertaining to modern and contemporary American art, including the Edward and Josephine Hopper Research Collection, the Sanborn Hopper Archive, and the Arshile Gorky Research Collection, among others. The museum also heads the Whitney Independent Study Program and organizes the Whitney Biennial, an exhibition which showcases the work of emerging artists and which has maintained an important influence on contemporary American art.
From 1966 to 2014, the Whitney was located at 945 Madison Avenue on Manhattan's Upper East Side 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 at 99 Gansevoort Street and opened on May 1, 2015, expanding the museum exhibition space to 50,000 square feet. In 2022, the Whitney was the 67th most-visited art museum in the world and the 10th most-visited art museum in the United States.
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 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, George Luks, and Everett Shinn, as well as others such as Edward Hopper, Stuart Davis, Charles Demuth, Charles Sheeler, and Max Weber.
With the aid of her assistant, Juliana R. Force, Whitney collected nearly 700 works of American art. In 1929, she offered to donate over 500 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but the museum declined the gift. This, along with the apparent preference for European modernism at the recently opened Museum of Modern Art, 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 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—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. 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, which was on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago.
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 and 75th Street on Manhattan's Upper East Side. 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 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, housed at Champion International. 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 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, 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 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 paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, installation art, video, and photography.
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, Jonathan Borofsky, Louise Bourgeois, Sonia Gordon Brown, Charles Burchfield, Alexander Calder, Suzanne Caporael, Norman Carton, Carolina Caycedo, Ching Ho Cheng, Talia Chetrit, Ann Craven, Anna Craycroft, Dan Christensen, Greg Colson, Susan Crocker, Ronald Davis, Stuart Davis, Mira Dancy, Lindsey Decker, Martha Diamond, Richard Diebenkorn, Daniella Dooling, Arthur Dove, Loretta Dunkelman, William Eggleston, Helen Frankenthaler, 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, Franz Kline, Terence Koh, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Ronnie Landfield, John Marin, Knox Martin, John McCracken, John McLaughlin, Robert Motherwell, Bruce Nauman, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, Kenneth Noland, Paul Pfeiffer, Jackson Pollock, Larry Poons, Maurice Prendergast, Kenneth Price, Robert Rauschenberg, Man Ray, Mark Rothko, Morgan Russell, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Cindy Sherman, John Sloan, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, and hundreds of others.
Every two years, the museum hosts the Whitney Biennial, 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 builders, featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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, Julian Schnabel, Kathryn Bigelow, Roberta Smith, and Félix González-Torres, 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 retired in 2023; its incoming director is Gregg Bordowitz.
Notable alumni
Damali Abrams — 2015-2016
Elia Alba — 2000-2001
Jennifer Allora — 1998–1999
Charlie Ahearn — 1972-1973
Laylah Ali — 1991-1992
American Artist — 2016-2017
Richard Armstrong — 1973-1974
George Baker — 1994-1995
Jack Bankowsky — 1981-1982
Carlos Basualdo — 1994-1995
David Bates — 1976-1977
Zoe Beloff — 1985-1986
Naomi Beckwith — 2002-2003
Judith Bernstein — 1975-1976
Ashley Bickerton — 1984-1985
Kathryn Bigelow — 1971-1972
David Birkin — 2012-2013
Hannah Black — 2013-2014
Maura Brewer — 2014-2015
Natalie Bookchin — 1991-1992
Power Boothe — Fall 1967; Spring 1968
Gregg Bordowitz — 1985-1986
Candice Breitz — 1996-1997
Gavin Brown — 1988-1989
Gerard Byrne — 1998-1999
Matthew Buckingham — 1996-1997
Tom Burr — 1987-1988
James Casebere — 1977-1978
David Černý — 1995-1996
Laura Cottingham — 1981-1982
Tony Cokes — 1983-1984
Renee Cox — 1992-1993
Susan Daitch — 1976-1977
J. Yolande Daniels — 1996-1997
Moyra Davey — 1988-1989
Edit DeAk — 1972-1873
Danielle Dean — 2013-2014
Al-An deSouza — 1993-1994
Nitasha Dhillon — 2012-2013
Mark Dion — 1984-1985
Peter Doroshenko — 1986-1987
Gardar Eide Einarsson — 2002-2003
Coleen Fitzgibbon — 1973-1974
Andrea Fraser — 1983-1984
LaToya Ruby Frazier — 2010–2011
Victoria Fu — 2005-2006
Rainer Ganahl — 1990-1991
Andrea Geyer — 1999–2000
Melanie Gilligan — 2004-2005
Ken Gonzales-Day — 1992-1993
Félix González-Torres — 1980-1981
Renée Green — 1989-1990
Johan Grimonprez — 1992-1993
Madeleine Grynsztejn — 1985-1986
Catherine Gund — 1988-1989
Allison Janae Hamilton — 2013-2014
Lyle Ashton Harris — 1992-1993
K8 Hardy — 2002-2003
Heather Hart — 2008-2009
Sharon Hayes — 1999–2000
Jenny Holzer — 1976-1977
Ashley Hunt — 1999–2000
Bryan Hunt — 1971-1972
Ryan Humphrey — 2005–2006
Adelita Husni-Bey — 2012-2013
Jeanette Ingberman — 1975-76
Rajkamal Kahlon — 2001-2002
Emily Jacir — 1998-1999
Jane Jin Kaisen — 2007-2008
Tom Kalin — 1987-1988
Nina Katchadourian — 1995-1996
Devin Kenny — 2014-2015
Jon Kessler — 1979-1980
Michael Kessler — 1976-1977
Laura Kipnis — 1978-1979
Carole Ann Klonarides — 1972-1973
Jutta Koether — 1992-1993
Miwon Kwon — 1998-1999
Pamela M. Lee — 1990-1991
Sam Lewitt — 2004-2005
Glenn Ligon — 1984-1985
Maria Lind — 1995-1996
Cameron Martin — 1995-1996
John Miller — 1977-1978
Yong Soon Min — 1980-1981
Helen Molesworth — 1989-1990
Mariko Mori — 1992-1993
Meleko Mokgosi — 2007–2008
Sarah Morris — 1989–1990
Carlos Motta — 2005-2006
Ulrike Müller — 2002-2003
Eliza Myrie — 2019-2020
Narcissister — 2004-2005
Dona Nelson — Spring 1968
John Newman — 1972-1973
Angel Nevarez — 2001-2002
Hương Ngô — 2011-2012
Jacqueline Hoang Nguyen — 2010-2011
Senam Okudzeto — 1999-2000
Tom Otterness — 1973-1974
Clifford Owens — 2000-2001
Christiane Paul — 2005-2007
Claire Pentecost — 1988-1989
Mai-Thu Perret — 2002-2003
Paul Pfeiffer — 1997–1998
Lisa Phillips — 1976-1977
Sarah Pirozek — 1987–1988
William Pope.L — 1977-1978
Bettina Pousttchi — 1999–2000
Sreshta Premnath — 2007-2008
Sean Raspet — 2007-2008
Michael Richards — 1992-1993
Carrie Rickey — 1975-1976
Walter Robinson — 1972-1973
Carissa Rodriguez — 2001-2002
Emily Roysdon — 2000–2001
Jayce Salloum — 1988-1989
Julian Schnabel — 1973-1974
Aliza Shvarts — 2014-2015
Katharina Sieverding — 1976-1977
Shelly Silver — 1980—1981
Xaviera Simmons — 2004—2005
Jason Simon — 1984-1985
Michael Smith — 1972-1973
Roberta Smith — 1968-1969
Emily Sundblad — 2005–2006
Ho Tam — 1996-1997
Javier Téllez — 1997-1998
Valerie Tevere — 1999-2000
Mungo Thomson — 1994-1994
Rirkrit Tiravanija — 1985-1986
Oscar Tuazon — 2001–2002
Fatimah Tuggar — 1995-1996
Julia Wachtel — 1978-1979
Marianne Weems — 1985-1986
Roger Welch — 1970–1971
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. 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 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 (1998–2003), David A. Ross (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 and Arthur Altschul. David Solinger became the Whitney's first outside president in 1966.
Leonard A. Lauder, 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, the Chinatown Art Brigade, and W.A.G.E., for vice chair Warren B. Kanders' ownership of the company Safariland, 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, 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, who withdrew his work before the Biennial opened.) A day later, a second wave of artists (Eddie Arroyo, Christine Sun Kim, Agustina Woodgate, and Forensic Architecture) 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)
List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City
List of Whitney Biennial artists
Whitney Biennial
The Catalog Committee
References
Citations
External links
Whitney Museum Library
Artport: The Whitney Museum Portal to Net Art
Conservation Lab Interiors
Whitney Museum within Google Arts & Culture
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