The Whitney's Collection
Sept 28, 2015–Apr 4, 2016
Willem de Kooning, Woman and Bicycle, 1952–53. Oil, enamel, and charcoal on linen, 76 1/2 × 49 1/8 in. (194.3 × 124.8 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase 55.35. © The Willem de Kooning Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The more than two hundred works on display on the seventh and sixth floors represent a selection of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s collection. Organized in a rough chronological sequence beginning on the seventh floor, the presentation is divided into eleven thematic “chapters.” Each chapter takes its name not from a movement or style but from the title of a work that evokes the section’s animating impulse. The exhibition elaborates some of the themes, ideas, beliefs, and passions that have galvanized American artists in their struggle to work within and against established conventions, often directly engaging their political and social contexts. Works of art across all mediums are displayed together, acknowledging the ways in which artists have engaged various modes of production and dissolved the boundaries between them.
As a collection presentation, the works on view necessarily reflect the Whitney’s record of acquisitions and exhibitions, which constitutes a kind of collective memory—one that represents a range of individual, sometimes conflicting, attitudes toward what American art might be or mean or do at any given moment. Works that have rarely, if ever, been shown appear alongside beloved icons in an effort to unsettle assumptions about the American art canon. The presentation also underscores the difficulty of neatly defining the country’s ethos and inhabitants, a challenge that lies at the heart of the Museum’s commitment to and continually evolving understanding of American art.
Artists
- Ansel Adams
- Ruth Asawa
- Richmond Barthé
- George Bellows
- Thomas Hart Benton
- Henry Billings
- Peter Blume
- Louise Bourgeois
- Robert Breer
- Mary Ellen Bute
- Paul Cadmus
- Alexander Calder
- Elizabeth Catlett
- John Chamberlain
- Joseph Cornell
- Eldzier Cortor
- Miguel Covarrubias
- Ralston Crawford
- Ted Croner
- John Steuart Curry
- Stuart Davis
- Roy DeCarava
- Willem de Kooning
- Charles Demuth
- Maya Deren
- Mark di Suvero
- Arthur Dove
- Elsie Driggs
- Mabel Dwight
- Walker Evans
- Helen Frankenthaler
- Robert Frank
- Jared French
- Arshile Gorky
- Louis Guglielmi
- Philip Guston
- Marsden Hartley
- Edward Hopper
- Richard Hunt
- Jasper Johns
- William H. Johnson
- Franz Kline
- Lee Krasner
- Yasuo Kuniyoshi
- Jacob Lawrence
- Helen Levitt
- Morris Louis
- Helen Lundeberg
- Len Lye
- Man Ray
- John Marin
- Reginald Marsh
- Lisette Model
- Gerald Murphy
- Barnett Newman
- Isamu Noguchi
- Chiura Obata
- Georgia O'Keeffe
- Raphael Montañez Ortiz
- Alfonso Ossorio
- Agnes Pelton
- Horace Pippin
- Jackson Pollock
- Kay Sage
- Charles Sheeler
- David Smith
- Joseph Stella
- Hedda Sterne
- Florine Stettheimer
- George Tooker
- Bill Traylor
- Weegee
- Andrew Wyeth
Events
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Learning Series Course: Art in the United States and Abroad, 1950–1975
Saturday, October 10, 2015
5:30–7 pm -
Learning Series Course: Art in Context—Exploring Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist and The Whitney’s Collection
Sunday, November 1, 2015
1–2 pm -
Fall Educator Preview
Friday, November 6, 2015
3:30–6 pm -
Family Fun: Jump off the canvas!
Saturday, November 14, 2015
2:30 pm
Whitney Stories
Beyond Documentation: Davarian Baldwin on Archibald Motley’s Gettin’ Religion
"This piece gets at the full gamut of what I consider to be Black democratic possibility, from the sacred to the profane."