Whitney Museum of American Art in the context of "American realism"

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⭐ Core Definition: Whitney Museum of American Art

The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a modern and contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. The institution was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (18751942), a prominent American socialite, sculptor, and art patron after whom it is named.

The Whitney focuses on collecting and preserving 20th- and 21st-century American art. Its permanent collection, spanning the late-19th century to the present, comprises more than 25,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, films, videos, and artifacts of new media by more than 3,500 artists. It places particular emphasis on exhibiting the work of living artists as well as maintaining institutional archives of historical documents pertaining to modern and contemporary American art, including the Edward and Josephine Hopper Research Collection (the museum is the largest repository of Edward Hopper's artwork and archival materials in the world), the Sanborn Hopper Archive, and the Arshile Gorky Research Collection, among others.

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👉 Whitney Museum of American Art in the context of American realism

American realism was a movement in art, music and literature that depicted contemporary social realities and the lives and everyday activities of ordinary people. The movement began in literature in the mid-19th century, and became an important tendency in visual art in the early 20th century. Whether a cultural portrayal or a scenic view of downtown New York City, American realist works attempted to define what was real.

In the U.S. at the beginning of the 20th century a new generation of painters, writers and journalists were coming of age. Many of the painters felt the influence of older U.S. artists such as Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam, J. Alden Weir, Thomas Pollock Anshutz, and William Merritt Chase. However they were interested in creating new and more urbane works that reflected city life and a population that was more urban than rural in the U.S. as it entered the new century.

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Whitney Museum of American Art in the context of Renzo Piano

Renzo Piano OMRI (Italian: [ˈrɛntso ˈpjaːno]; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable works include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), Kansai International Airport in Osaka (1994), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (2015), Istanbul Museum of Modern Art in Istanbul (2022), Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens (2016) and The New York Times Building in New York City (2007). He was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998.

Piano has served as a senator for life in the Italian Senate since 2013.

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