The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery is the principal public visual arts space and

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own Collection (artwork), collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. A ...

of the

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in New York City, New York, United States.

History

Established in 1986, it advances the university's "historical, critical, and creative engagement with the visual arts." The current director of the Wallach Art Gallery is Betti-Sue Hertz. Originally located in

Schermerhorn Hall Schermerhorn Hall () is an academic building on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University located at 1180 Amsterdam Avenue, New York City, United States. Schermerhorn was built in 1897 with a $300,000 gift from alumnus and trustee W ...

, since 2017, the gallery has been located at the Lenfest Center for the Arts in Manhattanville, a building designed by the Italian contemporary architect

Renzo Piano Renzo Piano (; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (20 ...

. Wallach's curatorial focus on traditionally under-represented artists, including local Harlem artists, has been described as a "welcome decision" by

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

. In 2018, Wallach Art Gallery hosted the critically acclaimed exhibition titled ''Posing Modernity: The Black Model From Manet and

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...

to Today'' and curated by the American scholar of African American art Denise Murrell, which examined the depictions of people of color in European

modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradi ...

. The exhibition later traveled to the

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...

in Paris, under the title ', where it was expanded with more works of canonical French 19th-century painters, including Édouard Manet's ''Olympia'' painted in 1863.

References

{{Columbia University Art museums and galleries in New York City Columbia University Buildings and structures in Harlem Art in Harlem