I went to the Yogi Berra Museum for the first time and I really enjoyed myself not just as a Yankee fan but learning the life behind the man. I did not know very much about Yogi Berra and his life but it is an interesting look at someone’s life and how his sport molded him to be the player and the family man he was in life.
The entrance to the museum for a life well lived
I never realized he was born in St. Louis and how his life in baseball came about. The museum takes Yogi Berra’s life from the time he was born and his family life growing up to how he became a ball player to his life in the minors and then to his life as a Yankee.
The career of Yogi Berra
The movie theater
He really was the ultimate leader and Yankee at the golden years of the team when they won five consecutive championships.
The case lines at the Museum
The museum also covered his post player life and his time coaching the Mets and winning other championships. It was also interesting to see how his family life shape him. He had been married over 60 years to his wife and had three boys and eleven grandchildren and how close he was with his family. I also liked his interaction with the new players and mentoring young players.
Taking a picture with ‘The Captain’ Derek Jeter
The best pictures that stood out was his photo with Derek Jeter and the second was the group photo of the three perfect game pitchers and catchers with Yogi Berra and Don Larsen in the middle of the photo.
The pitchers and catchers with the ‘perfect game’
That captured the true spirit of the Yankees. They knew how to win.
Memorabilia at the Museum
What was fun to see is all the World Series Rings that he won on display. It was a tribute to such a storied career and life. The Yogism’s that he was quoted as saying as “It ain’t over till it’s over” told of his character and his spirit in life.
The growing accomplishments in his life
The one thing that stood out in the museum was that it was the story of a man who had a life well lived and had the balance of family, career and friends along the way that showed how even from humble beginnings you can achieve great things. He even got the Medal of Freedom after his death in 2015 which showed the effect he had on people.
All the World Series rings he won
For any true Yankee fan, I highly recommend a visit to the museum, not just for the pictures and stores and baseball memorabilia but to see a person who was his own man in life.
The statue of Yogi Berra outside the museum
Hats off to Yogi Berra that the town of Montclair would honor one of its citizens in such a way. It is really was a great museum.
The Yogi Berra Museum on the Montclair University Campus
The handprints of the family
History of the Museum: (Wiki)
The Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center is a museum on the main campus of Montclair State University in Little Falls, NJ. It serves to honor the career of Yogi Berra, who played for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The museum which contains artifacts from Berra’s career, opened on December 4th, 1998. It is adjacent to Yogi Berra Stadium.
“The Friends of Yogi Inc”, a nonprofit organization, raised two million through donations to build the museum to honor Yogi Berra, who played his entire Major League Baseball career for the New York Yankees. John McMullen, the owner of the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League was among the museum’s benefactors. The museum was built adjacent to Yogi Berra Stadium, which hosts the New Jersey Jackals, a Minor League Baseball team in the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball and the Montclair State Red Hawks baseball team.
The museum was dedicated in October 1998, with fellow Baseball Hall of Famers Ted Williams and Larry Doby in attendance. It opened to the public on December 4th. In 2010, IKON 5 Architects redesigned the museum and Brian Hanlon sculpted a statue of Berra to go in front of the museum.
The entrance to the museum
Berra had feuded with Yankees owner, George Steinbrenner since Steinbrenner fired him 16 games into the 1985 season. Berra refused to be involved in Yankees events, including Yankee games. In January 1999, Berra and Steinbrenner resolved their feud with a public event at the Yogi Berra Museum.
Berra frequented visited the museum for signings, discussions and other events. It was his intention to teach children important values such as sportsmanship and dedication, both on and off the baseball diamond.
On October 8th, 2014, a burglary occurred at the museum, in which a team of “professional” thieves stole specific pieces of Berra’s memorabilia.
Exhibits: (Wiki)
The museum contains items from Berra’s career, including baseball cards, a jacket worn by Berra while throwing out the first pitch of Game 1 of the 2009 World Series, two of his MLB MVP awards and all ten World Series rings he received as a player. Following the resolution of Berra’s feud with Steinbrenner, the Yankee loaned the Commissioner’s Trophy from the 1998 World Series to the museum.
The statue signed by visiting ball players
In 2013, the museum teamed up with Athlete Ally to develop an exhibit called “Championing Respect”. which aims to support the inclusion of LGBT athletes in sports. An exhibit in 2014 celebrated the 75th Anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech.
The museum offers a wide range of school and public programs on all aspects of sports and society. It conducts guided school tours and education programs, provides off-site assemblies on anti-bullying and sportsmanship and also collaborates with Montclair State University on programs examining topical issues in media and sports.
Yogi Berra with Babe Ruth
In promoting the values of respect and sportsmanship, the Museum in partnership with Investors Bank and the Super Essex Conference, developed a Best Teammate Award program in 2013, recognizing outstanding leadership by student-athletes. The museum also offers an array of summer camps, including youth baseball and softball camps.
(This information comes from Wiki)
After a visit to the museum, I stopped in the stadium behind the museum and watched Montclair University’s Baseball team play Stockton University.
The Yogi Berra Stadium at Montclair State University
I relaxed with a $1.00 hot dog and Coke and watched the game at Yogi Berra Stadium. It was a great way to spend the afternoon. It was fun to just relax in the afternoon and watch people having a good time.
I think watching the game with a good hot dog and Coke is the best.
The front of the Hamilton House in the early Spring
I visited the Hamilton House Museum this afternoon which is right down the road from Montclair State College and sits at the border of the Clifton-Montclair border. The interesting part of the house location is that it still sits the farm land of the Van Wagoner Family but the house was moved from its location to the current one because of the building of Route 46 in 1973.
The front of the house in the Spring
When talking with curator, the house is going through a transition from the City of Clifton ownership to the County of Passaic Historical Society’s site. They are currently cataloging every piece in the house and putting it online. They want to view the collection to see what they can work with within the home.
Each room represents a different time in the history of the house. There is a living room from the Victorian age, the kitchen is from the late 1700’s to the early 1800’s and the dining room is from the mid-1800’s. These rooms are furnished to represent a certain time in the house.
There will be many revisions in the future for the house so there are some changes on the way. The upstairs is currently being used for storage and there will be revision there as well. I got a quick tour of the rooms with the curator and he said there will be more changes in the future as they catalog each piece. The grounds are currently being replanted.
The Hamilton House Museum sits at the Clifton and Montclair border
The house is one of the last examples of early 19th century stone houses in Passaic County. The house was built in 1817 by John and Ann Vreeland and then passed to the Van Wagoner family. It changed hands a few times until 1856 when the Hamilton Family bought the house (no relationship to Alexander Hamilton). The house remained in the Hamilton Family until 1972 when the last living relative died and no one in the family wanted possession of the house (Tour Guide & Wiki).
The oldest section of the house
That’s when the City of Clifton bought the house from the family of its historic value. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 13th, 1982 (Wiki).
The outside grounds of The Hamilton House Museum
The Grape Arbor on the grounds of the Hamilton House
History of the Hamilton House:
(taken from the City of Clifton website)
This 18th Century Dutch gambrel-roofed homestead was once the home of the Van Wagoner and Hamilton families. This basic of the house does not greatly differ from its Dutch antecedents.
The sturdy one and one half story cut sandstone structure, flanked by a grainery, spring-house and gardens reflects almost two hundred years of American history. It brings back memories of an uncluttered horizon with farms, orchards, fresh brooks, forest full of game and filled with scent of wildflowers.
Hamilton House & the Clifton Community:
Although the City of Clifton was incorporated in 1917, a community had existed since 1679. Prior to 1917, the area was known as Acquackanonk Township and included parts of : Little Falls, Passaic, Paterson and West Paterson.
The Indian Chief Captahem deeded 11,000 acres to the early Dutch settlers on the shores of the Passaic River. Predominately rural, this sparsely populated village thrived and grew.
The farmhouse was presented to the City of Clifton by the developers of the late Henry Hamilton. The Hamilton family had bought the 96 acre property in 1856 and for over 100 years until the death of Mr. Hamilton in 1970, it had been the family home.
The old outhouse in the back of the property
Current Location and Future Plans:
The house was moved to its present location in Surgent Park in 1973. Infinite plans have been taken with examination and documentation of the building’s structural elements. Extensive research has been conducted including the records and treasured memories of Miss Caroline Hamilton as well as: Artifacts, Deeds, Manuscripts, Maps, Photographs and Wills.
The old Ice House on the property
Scheduling Tours:
The museum is opened for tours on Sunday from 2:00pm-4:00pm (except on holidays). The house is going through a transition right now with the change over.
I made my first visit to the Museum of Sex in New York City and highly recommend it. I have to admit it is different but what I like about the museum is that it doesn’t try to hide the subject and it also just doesn’t jump out at you. It is an interesting progression in art and I saw this in the exhibition “The History of Pornography”, where the films were set up in order since the Victorian times. Sometimes it had to go underground due the times but pornography has been around since the days of the media.
The exhibition shows early pictures and viascopes of sexual acts and the early films date back to the Silent era. The exhibition covers from the Silent era to present times and the advancement of sex in films once the Hayes Code was broken in the 1960’s. With the relaxed rules and the mainstream films of “Tie Me Up Tie Me Down” and “Deep Throat”, you can see the progression of this as an art form and progression of the way the films were made.
Another great exhibition that I saw was “Punk Lust: Raw Provocation 1971-1985”. This show matches nicely with the current show on the “Punk Movement” at the Museum of Arts & Design. It was interesting to see the posters, flyers, clothes and hear the music of the era. Just at the height of the ‘Sexual Revolution’ and into the fragments of the Disco era came a new sound and way to dress that started in the early 80’s before the progression of the Reagan years in Washington DC, this movement came with a new sound with Punk, New Wave and Technographic and a new way to dress provocative without being too revealing.
“Punk Lust” exhibition
As the museum was quoted saying: “The survey looking at the way Punk Culture used the language of sexuality, both visually and lyrically, to transgress and defy, whether in the service of political provocation, raw desire or just to break through the stifling gender norms and social expectations that punks refused to let define them.”
“Punk Lust” exhibition
On a more recent trip to the museum, three exhibitions were open and all very interesting, highlighting different types of eroticisms. These countered different parts of the artworld. Also, in the post-COVID era, all the interactive displays opened up and I was able to visit and experience each of these as well. These are the most fun!
The Andy Warhol exhibition:
“Looking at Andy Looking” exhibition:
(from the museum website)
This exhibition will explore themes of intimacy and voyeurism, including the depiction of homosexual desire, in Warhol’s early years of filmmaking. In films and footage from 1963-64, we witness the artist beginning to figure out what he could do and say with his newest plaything: the 16mm camera.
“Looking at Andy Looking”
(from the museum website)
Filmmaking is a mechanical art, but it can capture real people on the surface and below. Andy Warhol (1928-1987) lived much of his life “on the surface.” He embraced mechanical techniques like screen-printing, photography, and film, but Andy himself was not a machine. Behind the cool, detached persona was the highly personal—and above all queer—perspective of an inveterate experimenter.
The exhibition I saw was the “Artifact” exhibition from the Museum of Sex’s collection of items exploring how we look at sexual encounters. What is sex and how does a play a role in our lives?
“Artifact: Selection from a Secret Collection”
(from the museum website)
Gathered from the Museum of Sex’s permanent collection of more than 15,000 objects as well as from other notable collections and institutes of antiques, medical history and sexology, Artifact (xxx): Selections from Secret Collections presents an intimate exploration of how sex manifests across culture through art, science, and design. An early vibrator made in Great Britain, a lotus shoe worn by a woman in China, and a Braille issue of Playboy magazine provide insight into prevailing belief systems and societal taboos across geography and time.
Hugh’s Hefner’s smoking jacket
Jeweled Bra
(from the museum website)
Fulfilling a wide range of functions from artwork, medical devices and pop-culture mementos to guidebooks and accessories used for enhancing pleasure or pain, these objects tell the stories of the expansive yet nuanced influence of sexuality throughout history.
Candy pants from the 1970’s
Deep Throat Memorabilia
The memory of the movie a movie ‘Deep Throat’’
Intercourse Chair
Another exhibition that I enjoyed on my last trip to the Museum of Sex was the “I Licked it, It’s Mine” exhibition on exotic paintings and sculpture.
The ‘Licked it, it’s Mine’ exhibition sign
(from the museum website)
What does it mean to be “consumed” by lust, or to “possess” another? The artists Oh de Laval, Shafei Xia, and Urara Tsuchiya explore every manner of appetite, from sublimated yearning to all-consuming hunger. United by an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek approach to the erotic and a flair for fantasy, the paintings and ceramic sculptures in this exhibition move between pulpy melodrama and decorative daintiness.
Along the way, sexuality is experienced as love, but also as competition, involving our animal natures—and sometimes even the swapping of human and animal roles.
The gallery for ‘I licked it, it’s mine’ exhibition
The literature from the exhibition explaining the works
These were some of my favorite works from the exhibition:
The exotic works
The unusual works
The unique paintings and ceramics
One of my favorite pieces from the exhibition. I thought this was quite exotic.
I walked next through Carn-O-Rama and experienced the workings behind the scenes of a traveling carnival reaching the suburbs. I always thought it was just lights, rides and cotton candy. There is more to it than that.
After my visits to the three galleries, I took a took to the interactive section of the museum and experienced Funland, where I walked though Stardust Lane and all the lights and sounds of the mirrored rooms.
A Video walk through Funland is a lot of fun. It really pleases the senses.
I next took a trip to Super Funland and this was my trip through Stardust Lane. This is all lights and mirrors and it was an unusual walk through the museum that challenges the senses. Walking through Super Funland is a voyage in the wild with mirrors and music.
It get pretty interesting walking through here.
In another video walk through of Funland, I met a lot of interesting people on my walk through the museum. It really puts you into a interesting mood.
The pathway around the museum took me to other interactive exhibitions. Jump for joy was a very interesting interactive world of different sexual parts and mood lighting.
The ‘Jump for Joy’ exhibition
Then I walked through ‘Lucky Land’
Then I walked through and climbed ‘The Pink Palace’, a series of colored features that led through what looked like another sexual parts. This is called the ‘ClimbX”.
The colored building blocks of the exhibition of “ClimbX”
The colored blocks of the exhibition “ClimbX”
Another object to climb through on your way out of the exhibition.
It really is an interesting museum to visit. You really have to stop and enjoy the pleasures of each floor. You have to take the time experience all the sights and sounds. The funny part of leaving the museum is that there is an exotic food vendor on Fifth Avenue with the most unusual items he sells.
The Erotic Waffle food truck just outside the museum. Not your kids food truck. The truck sold sexual organ pastries, waffles and other exotic items. You have to stop by when you are in the neighborhood!
History of the Museum of Sex:
(This comes from the Museum of Sex History Website)
The Mission of the Museum of Sex is to preserve and present the history, evolution and culture significance of human sexuality. The museum produces exhibitions, publications and programs that bring the best of current scholarship to the wildest possible audiences and is committed to encouraging public enlightenment, discourse and engagement.
The Museum of Sex
The Beginning:
When the Museum of Sex first emerged on New York City’s Fifth Avenue on October 5th, 2002, it was without precedent in the museum world. In the development of its inaugural award winning exhibition NYCSEX: How New York Transformed Sex in America, the Museum created a board of comprised of leading scholars and historians. The Museum’s advisory board has guided curators and guest curators towards research resources, pertinent collections and exhibition relevant artists. Advisors such as Steven Heller, Timothy J. Gilfoyle, PhD, Mike Wallace PhD and June Reinisch, Director Emeritus for The Kinsey Institute for Research on Sex, Gender and Reproduction as well as institutional collaborations with New York University’s Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, New York Historical Society and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum have contributed to making the Museum of Sex one of the most dynamic and innovative institutions in the world.
Design has played a pivotal role in both exhibition development and execution with world-renowned design firms such as Pentagram Design Inc, Casson Mannand 2×4, helping to transform the galleries and historic building over the last six years. The museum’s building, built in the area of New York formerly known as the “Tenderloin,” a district of NYC made notorious by the 19th century for its bordellos, dance halls, theaters and saloons, serves as a New York City landmarked site.
Our Work:
Since its inception, the Museum of Sex has generated over 30 exhibitions and 6 virtual installments, each in keeping with the Museum’s mission of advocating open discourse surrounding sex and sexuality as well as striving to present to the public the best in current scholarship, unhindered by self-censorship. With each new exhibition, lecture series, event and publication, the Museum of Sex is committed to addressing a wide range of topics, while simultaneously highlighting material and artifacts from different continents, cultures, time periods and media.
Our Collection:
The Museum’s permanent collection of over 20,000 artifacts is comprised of works of art, photography, clothing and costumes, technological inventions and historical ephemera. Additionally, the museum houses both a research library as well as an extensive multimedia library, which includes 8mm, Super 8mm, 16mm, BETA, VHS and DVD’s. From fine art to historical ephemera to film, the Museum of Sex preserves an ever-growing collection of sexually related objects that would otherwise be destroyed and discarded due to their sexual content.
Our Public:
In a short time, the Museum has received attention from academic institutions, major publications, media outlets and celebrities, positioning the Museum of Sex within the realm of academia and pop culture alike. The Museum has been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Esquire and Time and on television broadcasts ranging from CNN to IFC to NBC’s Law & Order Criminal Intent. Award-winning advertising campaigns in print and television media have sealed the Museum’s arrival as a cultural touchstone.
Accolades continue to pour in from visitors and the press in every corner of the world, inspiring the Museum of Sex to continually surpass its own high expectations. Future planned exhibitions and events-the likes of which have never been offered by any other institution-are guaranteed to captivate and resonate, securing the Museum of Sex a well-deserved, distinguished place in history (Museum of Sex History)
I am finding more and more that the university art galleries are mounting very interesting and clever exhibitions and some as edgy as their large museum counterparts. I recently attended the ‘Art After Stonewall’ exhibition which is created as a two part exhibition with the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art to showcase the post Stonewall riots to the beginning of the AIDS crisis.
“Art After Stonewall” exhibition
The exhibition was an interesting mix of pictures, video, graphic paintings and posters and documentary work combined to show the mood of the times. Some of the most impressive works came from clips of documentaries on Andy Warhol’s ‘Factory Movies’, and the documentaries on ‘Tongues Untied’ and ‘Paris is Burning’ about the gay crisis about men of color and the racism that they faced even within the Gay Community.
The East Village Art Community from the 1980’s “Art After Stonewall”
Some of the photos of then fringe neighborhoods are funny to see as they have been gentrified beyond what anyone could have thought thirty years ago from the early 1980’s. The East Village of back then and of today are world’s apart.
The College did a good job mounting the show and telling the story that is both humorous and sad at the same time. Also, the Grey Gallery is small so you can get through the exhibition in about an hour.
The Grey Gallery exhibition “Art After Stonewall” This is a Keith Haring poster.
The most recent exhibition that I visited “Mudd Club 1978-1983: The Stephen Mass Papers” and the people who had visited the club at that time.
The Broadway Windows of the “The Mudd Club” exhibition in the NYU Broadway building.
In collaboration with NYU Fales Library and Special Collections, 80WSE Gallery presents an exhibition featuring materials from The Stephen Mass Papers, focusing on the legendary Mudd Club venue in New York City (1978-1983) through photographs and extensive notes. Located at the street-level Broadway Windows gallery and Project Space, the exhibition materializes the file structures of the archive and select visual documents contained within the collection.
The Broadway Windows of “The Mudd Club”.
The archival extracts provide rare insight into an important epicenter of downtown art, music, fashion, and culture at a transitional point in New York City and American life marked by rapid urban gentrification and the dawn of The Reagan Era. Within this atmosphere, post-punk musicians, independent designers, contemporary artists, and celebrities coalesced to animate the Mudd Club ‘cabaret’.
The Broadway windows of the “The Mudd Club”.
Acquired by Fales in 2019, the Stephen Mass Papers spans 16.75 Linear Feet in 24 manuscript boxes, 3 half manuscript boxes, 2 small flat boxes, 2 oversize flat boxes, 1 media box, 1 oversize folder in shared housing, and 1 sound reel in shared housing, including 33.92 Megabytes in 167 computer files, 1 sound tape reels , 1 videocassettes (u-matic), 10 audiocassettes, and 6 film reels.
The Broadway Windows of the “Mudd Club”.
“Stephen Mass is an entrepreneur who co-founded the Mudd Club located at 77 White Street in downtown New York City in 1978 along with art curator Diego Cortez and Anya Phillips. The venue became a focal point of the downtown music, art, and cultural scene in the late 20th century, showcasing the intersections of popular and avant-garde performance culture, gender and sexuality, celebrity culture, music, visual art, fashion, film, and nightlife.
The opening sign from the Grey Gallery on the NYU Campus.
The Stephen Mass Papers (inclusive dates 1940-2019, bulk dates 1978-2009) documents the founding and operation of the Mudd Club in New York City, Mass’s other entrepreneurial ventures in New York, and his nightclubs and restaurants in Berlin, as well as his personal life and family history. Consisting of both paper and electronic formats, the collection includes extensive notebooks and notes containing the planning and working notes for Mass’s various endeavors, financial and legal documents, promotional materials for events (such as posters, flyers, and newsletters), ephemera (differentiated from promotional material, as promotional material Mass collected from other clubs or organizations), press coverage, and photographic materials such as prints, negatives, and slides.”
The Grey Gallery exhibition of the “Mudd Club 1978-1983: The Stephen Mass Papers”.
—Fales Library and Special Collections
The Fales Library & Special Collections comprises 350,000 volumes of book and print items, over 11,000 linear feet of archive and manuscript materials, and about 90,000 audiovisual elements.
In 2024, the Grey Gallery moved to its new home at 18 Cooper Square and has a whole new contemporary look to it.
The history of the Grey Gallery on the NYU Campus.
Works from the permanent collection at the new “Grey Gallery” at 18 Cooper Square.
The front of the gallery for the “Americans in Paris” exhibition
I was invited to a new exhibition open to students at NYU “American’s in Paris”, an exhibition of American artists who had been living and creating their art in the City of Lights after WWII until the 1960’s.
The sign for the “American in Paris” exhibition.
The entrance to the new Grey Galleries.
The back Galleries for the “Americans in Paris” exhibition.
The works of the artist “Kimber Smith” in the “American in Paris” exhibition.
The exhibition “American’s in Paris” with artist Joan Mitchell’s work.
The exhibition “American’s in Paris” work by artist Ed Clark.
The works of artist Henry Cousin’s in the exhibition “American’s in Paris”.
The galleries of the Grey Art Galleries
Peter Saul’s “Man in Electric Chair”
“Man in Electric Chair”
The Jazz band entertaining us at the opening of the “Americans in Paris” exhibition.
As an Alumnus of NYU, I now come for the exhibitions and just enjoy myself. I came in for the newest exhibition.
The exhibition in 2024 was “Make Way for Berthe Weill”: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde
The main sign from the exhibition
(from the Grey Gallery website)
Make Way for Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde surveys the groundbreaking career of the first woman modern art dealer. Berthe Weill (1865–1951) championed many fledgling masters of modern art early on—such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Amedeo Modigliani—as well as numerous others who did not achieve wide acclaim. Yet her role in early 20th century modernism has been omitted from most historical accounts.
The exhibition will feature some 110 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture—many of which were shown at her gallery during the first four decades of the 20th century. Examining Weill’s contributions to the history of modernism as a gallerist, a passionate advocate of contemporary art, and a Jewish woman, it brings to light the remarkable achievements of a singular figure who overcame sexism, antisemitism, and economic struggles in her quest to promote emerging artists (From the NYU-Grey Gallery website).
The timeline of her career
The gallery that night
The art featured were artists promoted by the art dealer
The artwork by female artist Emilie Charmy
The work by artist Mark Chagall
One of my favorite pieces in the show by Mark Chagall
The Mission of the Grey Art Gallery:
The Grey Art Gallery is New York University’s fine arts museum, located on historic Washington Square Park in New York City’s Greenwich Village. As a university art museum, the Grey Art Gallery functions to collect, preserve, study, document, interpret and exhibit the evidence of human culture. While these goals are common to all museums, the Grey distinguishes itself by emphasizing art’s historical, cultural and social contexts, with experimentation and interpretation as integral parts of the programmatic planning. Thus, in addition to being a place to view the objects of material culture, the Gallery serves as a museum-laboratory in which a broader view of an object’s environment enriches our understanding of its contribution to civilization (NYU Grey Gallery History)
The History of the Grey Art Gallery at New York University:
The Grey Art Gallery is located within New York University’s Silver Center-the site of NYU’s original home, the legendary University Building (1835-1892). Winslow homer, Daniel Huntington, Samuel Colt, George Innes and Henry James all lived and worked there, as did Professor F.B.Morse, who established the first academic fine arts department in America on the site now occupied by the Grey Art Gallery.
Demolished in 1892, the original building was replaced by the Main Building (renamed the Silver Center in 2002). Here was located, from 1927 to 1942, A. E. Gallatin’s Museum of Living Art, NYU’s first art museum and the first institution in this country to exhibit work by Picasso, Leger, Miro, Mondrian, Arp and members of the American Abstract Artists group. Gallatin aspired to create a forum for intellectual exchange, a place where artists would congregate to acquaint themselves with the latest developments in contemporary art. In 1975, with a generous gift from Mrs. Abby Weed Grey, the Museum’s original space was renovated, office and a collection storage facility were added and the doors were reopened as the Grey Art Gallery (Museum history).
Exhibitions organized by the Grey Art Gallery encompass aspects of all the visual arts: painting, sculpture, drawing and printmaking, photography, architecture and decorative arts, video, film and performance. In addition to originating its own exhibitions, some of which travel throughout the United States and abroad, the Gallery hosts traveling exhibitions. Award-winning scholarly publications, distributed worldwide are published by the Grey Art Gallery. In conjunction with its exhibitions, the Grey also sponsors public programs including lectures, symposia, panel discussions and films (Museum history).
The new Gallery is at 18 Cooper Square.
(This was taken from the Museum’s website).
Enjoying a evening at the Grey Gallery
The new exhibition in the spring of 2025 was ‘Anonymous was a Woman’ , an execution on the ‘Anonymous was a Woman’s and the great programs effects on mid-Career female artists in the Unit.
The information sign in the front gallery
The entrance of the gallery the night of the exhibition
The entrance to the Grey Art Museum
This was the sign inside for the exhibition
The inside gallery at the start of the show showcasing the collection on display
The main gallery at Grey Gallery
These were the pieces from the show that I found most impressive:
One of the more unusual paintings from the exhibition ‘Monalisa’ by artist Ida Applebroog
The sign for ‘Monalisa’ by Artist Ida Applebroog
The sculpture ‘Rom’s Delhi’ by artist Judy Pfaff
The sign for ‘Rom’s Delhi’
The painting ‘Svati: Now and Then’ by Artist Chita Ganesh
The sign for ‘Svanti: Now and Then’
The sculpture ‘Untitled #1242’ by Artist Petah Coyne
The sign for the sculpture
The sculpture ‘Bones 2000’ by Artist Polly Apfelbaum
The sign for the sculpture
The painting ‘Flamethrower’ by Artist Carrie Moyer
The sign for the painting
The crowd at the end of the evening at the
‘Opening Night’
This unusual sculpture in the middle of the room
Astor Court at the end of the evening at the Grey gallery
I recently attended the ‘Irrititja Kuwaiti Tjungu‘ exhibition on Aboriginal art. It was a very interesting look at Native Art from Australia. This exhibition opened in February of 2026 and the artists were in attendance to talk about their works.
Irriṯitja Kuwarri Tjungu celebrates fifty years of Papunya Tula Artists. It features nearly 120 paintings, including some of the most iconic works of Indigenous Australian art. Rather than being arranged chronologically, the paintings are displayed according to Indigenous principles of genealogy, place, and ancestral travels. In doing so, the show reveals the deep, ongoing relationship between Aboriginal artists, the places they paint, and Tjukurrpa, which exists in a constant state of past and present together—or, in Pintupi, irrititja kuwarri tjungu.
The exhibition also recognizes the long association between Papunya Tula Artists and New York University forged by Professor Emeritus of Anthropology Fred Myers. Since 1973 Myers has served as one of the movement’s most prominent international advocates. His continued involvement with the community brought the exhibition Icons of the Desert to the Grey Art Museum in 2009. While that exhibition showcased early works from Papunya, Irrititja Kuwarri Tjungu honors and extends the legacy of the company’s founding artists.
The promotion sign for the exhibition
The art exhibition in the main gallery
Some of the works in the main gallery
(from the NYU/Grey Gallery website):
Fifty years ago, a painting movement emerged at Papunya in Australia’s Central Desert. It arose with such force and conviction that one could be forgiven for thinking it had existed forever, as though etched from the earth by the slow passage of time. In fact, formed in the aftermath of colonization, the enduring art movement is as much a product of recent historical circumstances as the ancient traditions on which it draws.
Now widely recognized in global contemporary art, painting at Papunya began in 1971 when a small group of Aboriginal men in the community started to represent once-secret ancestral designs of ceremony and ritual, using acrylic paint on scraps of cardboard, linoleum, and Masonite. Their seemingly abstract paintings revealed living ancestral connections known as Tjukurrpa (Dreaming), which fueled powerful artistic experiments with color, line, and space. The following year, in an act of unprecedented corporate sovereignty, the artists formed Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd., the first Aboriginal-owned arts enterprise in Australia. The company’s economic success has allowed generations of men and women artists to stay on their ancestral lands, and continues to provide vital opportunities for local community development.
These were some of my favorite pieces of art from the exhibition:
One of the pieces I admired in the exhibit
‘The Men’s Dreaming at Iloilo’
I thought this colorful work was interesting
The work ‘Lupuinga’
I loved the powerful colors of this painting
The ‘Karilywarra’ work is very colorful
This painting I thought would be interesting in textiles
The painting ‘Travels of Kutungu from Papunnga to Muruntji’
Visiting a Museum: The Unique, Unusual, Obscure and Historical 