Whitney Museum of American Art (original building)

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The Whitney Museum of American Art's original building is a collection of three 1838 rowhouses at 8–12 West 8th Street, between Fifth Avenue and MacDougal Street, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. In 1907, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney established the Whitney Studio Gallery at 8 West 8th Street adjacent to her own MacDougal Alley studio. This, and the later Whitney Studio Club at 147 West 4th Street, were intended to provide young artists with places to meet and exhibit their works.[1][2][3]

File:Robert Winthrop Chanler, Stained Glass windows (one of seven) in the Whitney Studio, New York City, 1918-1923. Private Collection.jpg
Stained glass window (and sketch) by Robert Winthrop Chanler, originally in the Whitney Studio

In 1918, American artist and friend Robert Winthrop Chanler was commissioned to redesign the interior of the 8th Street property, adding an allegorical bas-relief ceiling, a 20-foot-high plaster and bronze fireplace, elaborate stained glass windows, and decorative screens.[4][5][6]

In 1929, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art rejected Whitney's offer of the gift of nearly 500 new artworks that she had collected, Whitney established the Whitney Museum of American Art.[7] In 1931, she had architect Auguste L. Noel of the firm of Noel & Miller convert the three row houses at 8–12 West 8th Street into a gallery and residence for herself, and the museum's first home.[1][8] The museum opened November 18, 1931.[9][10] The Whitney bought 12 and 14 West 8th Street in 1943.[11]

In the 1940s, there were failed plans to incorporate the collections of the Whitney into the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the latter's 75th anniversary.[12] In 1954, the museum moved uptown to new quarters on 54th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, before eventually settling in 1966 at 945 Madison Avenue.[13] The old building – with the addition of 14 West 8th Street, an Italianate house built in 1853–54[8] – became the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture.[1]

The building is located within the Greenwich Village Historic District, established in 1969 by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1992.[14][4][15] Listed on the World Monuments Fund's 2012 Watch list,[7] it has been the focus of an extensive restoration project on the part of the University of Pennsylvania's Architectural Conservation Laboratory, in collaboration with the fund.[6]

Image gallery

These photographs, from a 1937 museum publication, show the museum as it was at the time:[16]

See also


References

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  10. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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  12. ↑ "Finding aid for the Metropolitan Museum of Art 75th Anniversary Committee records, 1945–1950", Metropolitan Museum of Art
  13. ↑ Template:Cite NY1960
  14. ↑ Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
  15. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1". and Template:NHLS url (10.1 MB)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
  16. ↑ Whitney Museum of American Art: history, purpose and activities, with a complete list of works in its permanent collection to June, 1937 New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1937. Copyright not renewed.

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External links

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