About the Whitney

As the preeminent institution devoted to the art of the United States, the Whitney Museum of American Art presents the full range of twentieth-century and contemporary American art, with a special focus on works by living artists. The Whitney is dedicated to collecting, preserving, interpreting, and exhibiting American art, and its collection—arguably the finest holding of twentieth-century American art in the world—is the Museum’s key resource. The Museum’s signature exhibition, the Biennial, is the country’s leading survey of the most recent developments in American art.

Innovation has been a hallmark of the Whitney since its beginnings. It was the first museum dedicated to the work of living American artists and the first New York museum to present a major exhibition of a video artist (Nam June Paik in 1982). Such figures as Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, and Cindy Sherman were given their first museum retrospectives by the Whitney. The Museum has consistently purchased works within the year they were created, often well before the artists became broadly recognized. The Whitney was the first museum to take its exhibitions and programming beyond its walls by establishing corporate-funded branch facilities, and the first museum to undertake a program of collection-sharing (with the San Jose Museum of Art) in order to increase access to its renowned collection.

Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue, New York, NY; Architect: Marcel Breuer and Hamilton Smith (1963–1966). Photograph by Jerry L. Thompson

History of the Whitney

Robert Henri, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, 1916. Oil on canvas, 50 × 72 in. (127 × 182.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Flora Whitney Miller  86.70.3© Estate of Robert Henri

The Whitney Museum of American Art emerged out of sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s advocacy on behalf of American artists. Read more 

The Breuer Building

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. Architect: Marcel Breuer. Photograph by Ezra Stoller. © Ezra Stoller / Esto

The Whitney owes its striking granite presence at the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and 75th Street to Bauhaus-trained architect Marcel Breuer. Read more 

downtown building project

Image courtesy of Renzo Piano Building Workshop in collaboration with Cooper, Robertson & Partners

The Whitney has broken ground on a new building in downtown Manhattan. Designed by Renzo Piano, it will include approximately 50,000 square feet of indoor galleries and 13,000 square feet of outdoor exhibition space. Read more 

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