__NOTOC__ The Whitney Museum of American Art original building is a collection of three 1838

rowhouse In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house ( UK) or townhouse ( US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings share side walls. In the United Sta ...

s located at 8–12 West 8th Street between Fifth Avenue and

MacDougal Street MacDougal Street is a one-way street in the Greenwich Village and SoHo neighborhoods of Manhattan, New York City. The street is bounded on the south by Prince Street and on the north by West 8th Street; its numbering begins in the south. Betw ...

in the

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. In 1907,

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (January 9, 1875 – April 18, 1942) was an American sculptor, art patron and collector, and founder in 1931 of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. She was a prominent social figure and hostess, ...

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. 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. In 1929, when the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

rejected Whitney's offer of the gift of nearly 500 new artworks that she had collected, Whitney established the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

. 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. In the 1940s, plans to incorporate the collections of the Whitney into the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of the 75th-anniversary celebration of the Met were unrealized. In 1954, the museum moved uptown to new quarters on 54th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues – eventually settling in 1966 at 945 Madison Avenue at East 75th Street – and the building, with the addition of #14 West 8th Street, an

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

house built in 1853–54, became the

New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture at 8 West 8th Street, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York State is an art school formed in 1963 by a group of students and their teacher, Mercedes Matter, all of ...

. The building is located within the Greenwich Village Historic District, established in 1969 by the

New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...

, and was declared a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1992. and Listed on the

World Monuments Fund World Monuments Fund (WMF) is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and trainin ...

's 2012 Watch list, it has been the focus of an extensive restoration project on the part of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

's Architectural Conservation Laboratory, in collaboration with the fund.

Gallery

These photographs, from a 1937 museum publication, show the museum as it was at the time:''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. File:Whitney Museum of American Art original 0014 gallery.jpg, File:Whitney Museum of American Art original 0012 staircase.jpg, File:Whitney Museum of American Art original 0018 paintings.jpg, File:Whitney Museum of American Art original 0000 door.jpg,

References

External links

Places Where Women Made History: New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, at National Park Service
{{National Register of Historic Places in New York, state=collapsed National Historic Landmarks in Manhattan School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan Houses completed in 1838 Greenwich Village Whitney Museum of American Art Neoclassical architecture in New York (state) 1838 establishments in New York (state)

Gallery

See also

References

External links