Whitney Museum of American Art – New York

Sculptor and philanthropist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney created the Whitney Museum of American Art because she believed it was necessary to establish an American museum dedicated exclusively to art by living artists in the United States. After the Metropolitan Museum of Art and then the Museum of Modern Art both rejected her attempts to donate her personal collection of art by living American artists to their permanent collections, her advocacy on behalf of the art and artists of the USA led to the founding of the Whitney and Mrs. Whitney’s holdings totaling some 600 works ultimately formed the museum’s founding collection.

The permanent collection today is comprised of approximately 21,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings and photographs representing more than 3,000 artists which includes 3,000 oil paintings, watercolors, drawings and prints by Edward Hopper, a bequest from the artist’s widow in 1970 that made the Whitney’s collection of works by this quintessential American artist the most comprehensive and important in the world. Spanning the full arc of Hopper’s career, among the paintings in the permanent collection are masterpieces like, “Soir Bleu,” from 1914, “New York Interior,” from 1921, “Light at Two Lights,” from 1927, “Railroad Sunset,” from 1929, “Self Portrait,” from 1930, “Early Sunday Morning,” from 1930, “Seven A.M.,” from 1948, “South Carolina Morning,” from 1955 and the breathtaking, “Woman in the Sun,” from 1961, perhaps the artist’s most acclaimed late period work.

Additional significant holdings include works by Thomas Hart Benton, George Bellows, Alexander Calder, Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, Marsden Hartley, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Gaston Lachaise, Roy Lichtenstein, Reginald Marsh, Louise Nevelson, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, John Sloan, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol. Among the masterpieces are Benton’s, “Poker Night,” from 1948, Bellow’s, “Dempsey and Firpo,” from 1924, Calder’s, “Circus,” from 1931, Davis’s, “Egg Beater No. 1,” from 1927, Gorky’s, “The Betrothal, II,” from 1947, Hartley’s, “Painting, Number 5,” from 1915, Johns’s, “Three Flags,” from 1958, Kelly’s, “La Combe 1,” from 1950, Kline’s, “Mahoning,” from 1956, de Kooning’s, “Door to the River,” from 1960, Lachaise’s, “Standing Woman,” from 1927, Lichtenstein’s, “Little Big Painting,” from 1965, Marsh’s, “Twenty Cent Movie,” from 1936, Nevelson’s, “Dawn’s Wedding Chappel,” from 1959, O’Keeffe’s, “Summer Days,” from 1936, Pollock’s, “Number 27,” from 1950, Rauschenberg’s, “Yoicks,” from 1953, Rothko’s, “Four Darks in Red,” from 1958, “Sloan’s, “Sixth Avenue Elevated at Third Street,” from 1928, Stella’s “Die Fahne Hoch!” from 1959 and Warhol’s, “Black Bean,” from 1968.

The museum also maintains a comprehensive reference library pertaining to twentieth and twenty-first century art as well as important archives critical to the study of more than two hundred American artists. Dedicated to its goal of showing the work of living artists, every two years the museum hosts its famed Whitney Biennial, an international art show that displays many lesser-known artists new to the American art scene.

Special exhibitions dedicated to American artists, art movements and artistic themes are scheduled throughout the year and works from the permanent collection are regularly rotated through the galleries providing something new to discover with each visit, particularly since the museum’s 2015 move to a highly regarded, expansive, Renzo Piano designed, new building just adjacent to the High Line in Downtown’s Meatpacking District. The museum is also home to a theater that hosts live performances, film screenings and lectures, classrooms that offer hands-on art instruction for children and adults plus the restaurant, Untitled, a locally sourced, farm-to-table take on the classic Manhattan coffee shop.

Visiting Hours:

Open Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday and Monday from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Open Friday and Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Closed Tuesday.

Admission:

$25 for a same-day adult ticket purchased at the museum.

$18 for a same-day student ticket (19 – 25) purchased at the museum.

$18 for a same-day senior ticket (65 and over) purchased at the museum.

Free for those 18 and under.

$22 for an advance adult ticket purchased online.

$17 for an advance student ticket purchased online.

$17 for an advance senior ticket purchased online.

Purchase Tickets Online

“Woman in the Sun” (1961) – Hopper

“Three Flags” (1958) – Johns

“Poker Night” (1948) – Benton

“Dempsey and Firpo” (1924) – Bellows

Whitney Museum (2105) – Renzo Piano

Official Museum Site