America Is Hard to See

May 1–Sept 27, 2015

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Eight West Eighth

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The Whitney Museum of American Art was established as a place for artists, a legacy it has cherished since its earliest incarnation as the Whitney Studio—an exhibition space opened by the artist and arts patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1914 in a townhouse at Eight West Eighth Street in Greenwich Village. With the energetic support of her assistant, Juliana Force, in 1918 she transformed the Studio into the Whitney Studio Club, which was a home for American artists then disdained by the conservative establishment. Over the next decade, the Studio Club expanded into the neighboring townhouses that together served as a social and creative hub for its artist-members. Force regularly organized exhibitions, lectures, and classes and provided American artists financial support (and food and drink) with the backing of Mrs. Whitney.

The works on view in this chapter evoke the diverse activities of the Studio Club, as well as the broad tastes of these two remarkable women. Paintings by Robert Henri, William Glackens, John Sloan, and George Luks are evidence of Mrs. Whitney’s adventurous early advocacy of a group of mavericks known as “The Eight,” proponents of the so-called Ashcan School who favored gritty urban realism. Photographs by Charles Sheeler and Berenice Abbott capture the townhouses’ interiors and the exhibitions held therein, while humorous drawings by Guy Pène du Bois chronicle the characters on the scene. A group of Edward Hopper’s figure studies from life-drawing class there affirm that the Studio Club was a site not just for exhibiting art but for making it. When the Whitney Museum of American Art was founded in 1931, with a collection donated by Mrs. Whitney and with Juliana Force as its first director, the institution’s identity and mission as the artist’s museum were already firmly in place.

Below is a selection of works from this chapter.

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Duncan Ferguson (1901-1974), Squirrel, c. 1930

Duncan Ferguson (1901-1974), Squirrel, c. 1930. Mahogany, 16 3/4 × 8 3/4 × 7 7/8 in. (42.5 x 22.2 × 20 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney 31.17 © artist’s estate

In the twentieth century’s opening decades, many American sculptors used animal subjects to hone their craft. The variety of species that could be modeled—from such wild native animals as goslings and squirrels to exotics like elephants and chimpanzees—appealed to artists interested in small-scale objects. Sculptures such as these were well suited for domestic display, and the expressive potential of animals encouraged artists to explore styles ranging from meticulous naturalism to more streamlined or whimsical approaches. The subject seems to have had a special attraction for Juliana Force, whose taste is wonderfully reflected in Duncan Ferguson’s Squirrel.

In contrast to dominant nineteenth-century methods of modeling in clay and then casting in another material, these artists embraced direct carving, a technique that provided an immediate engagement with the chosen medium.

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On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

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Learn more at whitney.org/artport

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