WHITNEY MUSEUM EXPANDS
ONLINE COLLECTION
With the vast expansion of its online collection, the Whitney Museum of American Art’s incomparable holdings of twentieth-century and contemporary art are now more accessible to the public than ever before. The relaunched site, whitney.org/Collection, has grown the online collection from approximately 700 works of art to more than 21,000, spanning all mediums—painting, sculpture, film, video, photography, works on paper, installation, and new media. With examples of work by more than 3,000 different artists, it will serve as a valuable resource for understanding American art and the creative process of artists in the United States from 1900 forward.
Along with images of the works, this searchable database also includes written text, resources for teachers, as well as audio and video files, providing a deeper insight into select pieces. The Museum will continually be adding content and new functionality to the site, enriching it with information about current works in the collection and recent acquisitions. Visitors to the site will be able to fully explore the breadth and depth of a collection that helped define what is innovative and influential in American art since the beginning of the twentieth century.
The launch of the online collection anticipates the opening on May 1, 2015 of the Whitney’s new Renzo Piano–designed building in the Meatpacking District with an expansive exhibition selected from the Museum’s premier collection of American art. The inaugural exhibition will fill more than 60,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor exhibition space, utilizing all galleries in the building, and it will celebrate the Whitney’s extraordinary new home and the richness of American art.
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Image courtesy Renzo Piano Building Workshop in collaboration with Cooper, Robertson & Partners
THE WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART
The Whitney Museum of American Art is the world’s leading museum of twentieth-century and contemporary art of the United States. Founded by sculptor and arts patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1914 as the Whitney Studio Club, and established as a museum in 1930, the Whitney Museum of American Art was first located on West 8th Street in Greenwich Village. After moving uptown to West 54th Street in 1954, the Museum was housed for nearly fifty years, from 1966 to 2014, in a building designed by Marcel Breuer on Madison Avenue at 75th Street. On May 1, 2015, the Whitney returns downtown to open its new home, designed by Renzo Piano, at the corner of Gansevoort and Washington Streets in the Meatpacking District, adjacent to the southern entrance of the High Line. The new building, which has generated immense anticipation and support, will enable the Whitney to expand its exhibition series, to show far more works from its renowned permanent collection (which now comprises over 21,000 works by more than 3,000 artists), to offer a greater variety of performances and programs, and to welcome many more visitors as the Museum continues to grow and evolve.
www.whitney.org
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