Whitney Museum of American Art

The Whitney Museum distinguishes itself not only as the premiere museum for American art, but also due to its special focus on living artists. Sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney founded the museum in 1930 in a time when artists with new ideas found it nearly impossible to exhibit or sell their work in the United States and was the leading patron of American art for nearly four decades. The museum is now a staple of New York and US cultural life and stands out as the first New York museum to present a major exhibition of a video artist (Nam June Paik in 1982). Additionally, such figures as Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, and Cindy Sherman were given their first museum retrospectives by the Whitney. The museum's signature exhibition, the Biennial, is the country's leading survey of the most recent developments in American art. It recently relocated to the west side of Manhattan, between the High Line and the Hudson River. Visiting the new building and enjoying the views as well as the art is an experience in itself.