Category: Exploring the Upper East Side

Gallery of New York School of Interior Design: NYSID Gallery 170 East 70th Street New York, NY 10021

Gallery of the New York School of Design; NYSID Gallery

170 East 70th Street

New York, NY 10021

(212) 472-1500

https://www.nysid.edu/exhibitions

https://www.nysid.edu/

Hours: Tuesday-Saturday: 11:00am-6:00pm/Closed on Sunday and Monday

Admission: Free

My review on TripAdvisor:

New York School of Interior Design at 170 East 70th Street

I came across the Gallery of the New York School of design when walking the Upper East Side for my project, ‘MywalkinManhattan.com’ when covering the lower part of the Upper East Side.

The entrance to the Gallery

The New York School of Interior Design was displaying their Senior projects as most the college galleries I visited were doing at this time (this takes place between May and June around graduation time). It was interesting to see how the seniors at the college reused space in old buildings for new purposes. The seniors use their creativity to recreate these spaces. It is the student’s project to take a space and redesign it for a new purpose.

The entrance sign to the gallery

We had done similar projects in college but did not have the computer technology that students do today and they really went above and beyond the things we did back then. You can take this project into 3-D if you want and how real it looks. These kids are so talented that their creativity reminds me of us when we were in school. If only we had what they have today.

The Student Projects line the walls

Take time to look at the detail work and space design of each project. Some of the students even include samples of fabrics and stone/wood work that will be used for the surfaces.

The Gallery is located on the Upper East Side in the back of the school’s building on the first floor. The admission is free and the Gallery is open when the school is open. There are only two shows a year. You just have to show your ID to get into the galleries.

The student project along the walls

The student project along the walls

What I like about the museum is that you get to see the student creativity and how they imagine the space will be designed. The use of color and shape play a roll in all the designs. It looks like the students get to choose their own space to design.

The best part is the you get to go in for free with you ID and just enjoy the show and see the students creativity.

History of the Gallery/Museum at the College:

The New York School of Design’s gallery presents two public exhibits yearly on design and architecture. Exhibitions have included ‘Paris in the Belle Epoque’, rare photographs from the years 1880-1914; Perspective on Perspective, an exploration of artistic technique; ‘The Great Age of Fairs; London, Chicago, Paris, St. Louis’, selective coverage from the first World’s Fair in 1851 to the last in 1904; ‘Venice’s Great Canal’, architectural drawings of the buildings along the famous thoroughfare; ‘Stanford White’s New York’, a survey of that classicist’s many metropolitan buildings and ‘Vanishing Irish Country Houses’, a look into the preservation crisis facing these not infrequently grand structures.

The gallery’s Thursday-evening lectures have included ‘Palladio’s Villas’; ‘Beaux-Arts New York’ and a survey of the Grands Projects undertaken in Paris during the tenure of French President Francois Mitterrand.

(New York School of Interior Design Website)

The Hewitt Gallery of Art Department of Art & Art History/ Marymount College Manhattan 221 East 71st Street New York, NY 10021

The Hewitt Galley of Art

Department of Art & Art History

Marymount College Manhattan

221 East 71st Street

New York, NY 10021

(212) 517-0400

http://www.mmm.edu/departments/art/the-hewitt-gallery-of-art.php

Admission: Free

Hours: Open when the building is open

My review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g60763-d32972661-r994090482-The_Hewitt_Gallery_of_Art-New_York_City_New_York.html?m=19905

The entrance to Marymount College’s Carson Hall where the gallery is located.

I came across The Hewitt Gallery of Art when I was exploring the Upper East Side for my project, ‘MywalkinManhattan.com’ and found myself walking into the Department of Art & Art History on the Marymount Manhattan College campus.

The Hewitt Gallery on the Marymount Campus

The Hewitt Art Gallery:

The Hewitt Gallery of Art

In conjunction with the exhibitions, gallery receptions give students the opportunity to engage with professional artists, critics, collectors and curators. Many of the exhibiting artists are also guest presenters in our Art and Art History classes.

This small but unique gallery was showing the Senior Class’s Thesis Show where several members of the Senior Class were showing their final projects in the three hallways of the gallery. The students did a good job mounting their works and each was different in their own way, some pictures, some video, some painting. You got to walk through the first floor to admire the work and the best part was that the gallery was free.

The main gallery on the first floor

The student artwork in the back gallery

The Hewitt Gallery of Art, comprised of the Esplanade and the adjacent Black and White Galleries in Nugent Hall and Carson Hall, offers the Marymount Manhattan community exposure to professional artists and to the larger art world.

The Gallery is known in the New York art community as an alternative exhibition space showcasing contemporary art of emerging and mid-career artists. Innovative and challenging works of art reflecting a wide range of concerns and styles are presented in changing thematic exhibitions. Recent professional exhibitions have been ‘Altered States’, ‘Art & Politics: See it Now!’, ‘The Selfie & Others’, ‘Self-similarity in Math’, Nature and Art’ and ‘The Mind’s Eye: Sight & Insight’. The current exhibition that I visited in 2025 was “Echoing Identities” Light & Form”.

The Black and White Galleries

The Echoing Identities: Light & Sound exhibition

When I visited the Gallery in 2025, the Graduate students were exhibiting their Senior project and the show was entitled ‘Echoing Identities: Light & Form’. Each student explored their work with their own original pieces.

The entrance of the Gallery to the ‘Echoing Identities

The exhibition had many different mediums from cloth and textiles to sculpture and print. There was also a mixture of video and printed media.

The Mexican inspired works

The sign for Gray Laxton’s work

The works by artist Gray Laxton

The sign for artist Alyssa Rodriguez

The piece by artist Alyssa Rodriguez

The sign for Alice Linkh’s work and my favorite in the show ‘Alice and Compony’ based on a story that she created and a book her grandmother created for her based on the story she told her after a dream she had. I loved both the book and the art that was related to it.

The original artwork for ‘Alice and Company’:

The book Alice Linkh’s grandmother created

The book and artwork for ‘Alice and Company

I thought it was a cute story of a little girl who worked with animals to repair the moon when it was damaged. I thought it was a clever children’s dream that made an interesting story.

The room off to the side of the Gallery, the Black and White Gallery offers more contemporary works of the students.

The Black and White Gallery

The works of some of the graduating students

The sign for ‘Finding the Sun’ by artist Ethan Foley

The work ‘Finding the Sun’

One of the clothing art sculpture

The students did a great job on their final projects. Each student gave their perspective in a very original way.

History of the Museum:

The Hewitt Gallery of Art is a laboratory for and an extension of the pedagogy of the Art Department programs.

The Hewitt Gallery provides opportunities for art majors to gain first-hand experience in exhibiting their Senior Thesis projects, as well as having solo exhibitions in their spring semester. Juniors also exhibit in an annual group exhibition and students are able to curate and organize shows in conjunction with their mentors and the Gallery Director.

Americas Society Museum 680 Park Avenue New York, NY 10021

Americas Society Museum

680 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10021

(212)628-3200

https://www.as-coa.org/visual-arts/arts_americas_circle

https://www.as-coa.org/arts-culture-americas-society

Open: Wednesday-Saturday: 12:00pm-6:00pm/Closed Sunday-Tuesday
Varies with exhibitions

Admission: Free

http://www.as-coa.org/visual arts

My review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60763-d548518-Reviews-Americas_Society-New_York_City_New_York.html

The Americas Society Museum at 680 Park Avenue

I came across the Americas Society Museum when walking on Park Avenue on the Upper East Side for my walking project, “MywalkinManhattan.com”. I noticed the sign for the exhibition, “The Metropolis in Latin America 1830-1930”. The exhibition was on the transformation of cities in Latin America from their traditional path starting with Spanish colonization to a more European layout that was developed between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars with the ‘Gilded Age’ thrown in as the third generation of settlers became long time citizens and became more wealthy.

They wanted to live like they were still in Europe. It showed how the cities developed over time with planning and then with extended, unintended growth that lead to the outlaying slums. Very interesting exhibition (now closed).

A exhibition at the Americas Society Museum

In the summer of 2024, the museum had an interesting exhibition on artist Alejandra Seeber. Her colorful interactive works had some of the patrons playing golf inside of the galleries. I thought her work was vibrant and exciting. She draws you in with the bright invigorating colors and on the floor pieces of carpet whose colors lead your golf balls from hole to hole as you travel the exhibition.

The museum press release on the Alejandra Seeber exhibition:

The description of the show:

(from the museum’s website):

Americas Society presents the first solo exhibition and career survey of the Argentine artist Alejandra Seeber in New York, starting June 5. Seeber (b. 1969, Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a painter who centers representations of various spaces to explore the tension between representation and abstraction in painting. Seeber utilizes bold color and gesture to examine liminal spaces within built and domestic environments. Later work veers further into abstraction, implementing visual devices like Rorschach drawings or knit grids to structure the composition.

My favorite painting in the show by Alejandra Seeber “La Bourgeoisie”

The sign of the painting

The exhibition pairs these paintings with Seeber’s contemporary explorations of the built landscape with an installation. This survey of her work is organized around a playable golf course installed inside the gallery space in which visitors will be invited to play golf as they walk through the show. The golf obstacles become active sculptures in the exhibition, creating porous boundaries between artwork and audience. This playful environment manifests the explorations of edges, doorways, windows, and borders in the artist’s painting. As they play, visitors will be able to trace Seeber’s artistic trajectory and see how her interventions in the form and practice of painting continue to this day.

The vibrance of the art with its colorful details

The interactive art in the gallery

The art golf course

History:

The Americas Society is an organization dedicated to education, debate and dialogue on the Americas and is located at 680 Park Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The Americas Society was established by David Rockefeller in 1965. The Americas Society promotes the understanding of the economic, political and social issues confronting Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada; its mission is “to increase public awareness and appreciation of the diverse cultural heritage of the Americas and the importance of the inter-American relationship.

The buildings historical past as the Percy Rivington Pyne House

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Rivington_Pyne_I

The Americas Society Building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The building was previously the Percy Rivington Pyne House before serving as the Soviet Mission to the United Nations until its current usage. along with the neighboring buildings of the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute and the Italian Consulate General, the house constitutes one of the few remaining unified architectural ensembles on Park Avenue. The Center for Inter-American Relations was later to be absorbed into Americas Society 1985.

Activities:

The Americas Society organizes interviews, speeches, podcasts, exhibitions, readings and musical performances at its headquarters and reports on Congressional updates and local events. Many events are held at the Salon Simon Bolivar, an expansive room in the building’s Neo-Federal style with wide windows, a 15 foot ceiling and wood-paneled and silk fabric walls.

An Exhibition at the museum:

The Americas Society produces the MetLife Music of the Americas (concert series) to showcase the diversity of styles and genres of music in the Americas. The concert series is held at the Society’s headquarters.

The Americas Society, together with Council of the Americas, produces the publication ‘Americas Quarterly’, a policy journal for the Western Hemisphere. The Americas Society also publishes ‘Review Magazine’, which was first founded in 1968. ‘Review Magazine’ is an English language journal for literature from Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada. ‘Review Magazine’ also helped support the first English translation of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez as well as other translations.

The Americas Society has also organized working groups on the topics of women’s empowerment and leadership. Cuba, energy policy, immigration, trade facilitation and Venezuela.

Council of the Americas (COA)

Is the premier international business organization whose members share a common commitment to economic and social development, open markets, the rule of law and democracy throughout the Western Hemisphere. The Council’s membership consists of leading international companies representing a broad spectrum of sectors, including banking and finance, consulting services, consumer products, energy and mining, manufacturing, media, technology and transportation.

(This information was taken directly from Wiki and Americas Society publications)

Bertha & Karl Leubsdorf Gallery Hunter College Campus 132 East 68th Street New York, NY 10065

Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery

Hunter College Campus

132 East 68th Street

New York, NY 10065

(212) 772-4991

http://www.leubsdorf.org

http://huntercollegeartgalleries.org/

https://huntercollegeart.org/galleries

https://hunter.cuny.edu/organizer/hunter-college-art-galleries/

Open: Sunday-Monday Closed/Tuesday-Saturday: 11:00am-5:00pm-See website when open.

Admission: Free

My review on TripAdvisor:

The Hunter College Museum-The Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery at 132 East 68th Street

I visited this wonderful little gallery on the main campus of Hunter College on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on my project, “MywalkinManhattan.com”. It is an interesting, small gallery that exhibits more fringe artists and collections. The best part of the gallery is that it is not overwhelming like the bigger museums in the City and you can see the whole gallery in about an hour or a little more (See my review on TripAdvisor).

A former exhibition was: Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A. is an interesting look at the Los Angeles based queer Chicanx artists between the late 1960’s and early 1990’s and is the first of its kind to excavate histories of experimental art practice, collaboration and exchange by a group of artists in Los Angeles (Hunter College Gallery).

The Axis Mundo Exhibition

Currently the museum is hosting the BFA Final Projects and there is a combination of video, paintings and photography to choose from. There is some interesting sculpture work by some of the graduating seniors so take some time in the afternoon to visit the gallery.

The Axis Mundo Exhibition

I visited the Gallery again in March of 2021, when the campus open after COVID rules lifted. The exhibition being shown was entitled “The Black Index”, a series of Black artists were being featured.

“The Black Index” features the works of artists Dennis Delgado, Alicia Henry, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Titus Kaphar, Whitfield Lovell and Lava Thomas. The artists included in The Black Index build upon the tradition of Black self-representation as an antidote to colonialist images. Using drawing, perform, performance, printmaking, sculpture and digital technology to transform the recorded image, these artists question our reliance on photography as a privileged source for documentary objectivity and understanding. Their works offer an alternative practice-a Black Index-that still serves as a finding aid for information about Black subjects, but also challenges viewers desire for classification (Hunter Gallery website).

Artist Alicia Henry’s work “Analogan III”

The works in The Black Index make viewers aware of their own expectations of Black figuration by interrupting traditional epismologies of portraiture through unexpected and unconventional depictions. These works image the Black body through a conceptual lens that acknowledges the legacy of Black containment that is always present in viewing strategies. The approaches used by Delgado, Henry, Hinkle, Kaphar, Lovell, and Thomas suggest understandings of Blackness and the racial terms of our neo-liberal condition that counter legal and popular interpretations and in turn offer a paradigmatic shift within Black visual culture (Hunter Gallery website).

“The Black Index” works (Hunter Gallery)

The nice part of these galleries are that it takes about 45 minutes to view the whole exhibition.

The BFA Art Show at the Hunter College Galleries

In the Spring 2025, I stopped into the galleries to visit the Undergraduate show, CODA.

The students featured in the show

The front galleries

The entrance to the main gallery

This piece is called “Flushed Toast”

Then in the main part of the gallery, there were a few pieces of yarn work that I thought were very interesting.

The works made of acrylic yarn by artist Demi Artemisa Espinoza

Artist Demi Artemisa Espinoza works

My favorite work in the show ‘Smiling Cheek to Cheek’

In the middle of the gallery, there were interesting modern sculptures.

The middle gallery

This was quite unique

Paintings in the show

Video works from student artist Aviella Holle

Video Artist Aviella Holle

The undergraduates in this Art program did an excellent job and I thought the works were very original.

The History of the Berth and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery:

(From the Hunter College Art Galleries website)

The Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery focuses on presenting historical and scholarly exhibitions and programming that provide new scholarship on important and often under-represented artists and art movements. Located on the Hunter College’s main campus, the gallery also hosts the BFA degree exhibitions each semester.

The Hunter College Art Galleries, under the auspices of the Department of Art and Art History, have been a vital aspect of the New York cultural landscape since their inception over a quarter of a century ago. The galleries provide a space for critical engagement with art and pedagogy, bringing together historical scholarship, contemporary artistic practice and experimental methodology. The galleries are committed to producing exhibitions, events and scholarship in dialogue with the intellectual discourse generated by the faculty and students at Hunter and serve as an integral extension to the department’s academic programs.

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