“Home for N.Y.U.’s Art Treasures Gets a New Name and Space”
New York Times, September 14, 2023
The downtown institution, which generates scholarly yet accessible art shows, is moving east to Cooper Square and reopening next year as the Grey Art Museum.
Who knew New York University even had a dedicated art museum?
Probably not the tens of thousands of visitors who have made their way to exhibitions at the Grey Art Gallery, tucked away for nearly half a century in the university’s arts and science center on Washington Square. But the Grey has been the guardian of the university’s trove of art treasures, though that wasn’t obvious by its name.
That is about to change. Grey Art Gallery is moving several blocks east to a larger, more prominent space at 18 Cooper Square. It will reopen next year on March 2 as the Grey Art Museum to better reflect its history and mission, with the inaugural show “Americans in Paris: Artists Working in Postwar France, 1946-1962.”
“We’ll be much more visible,” said Lynn Gumpert, its director since 1997. With an illustrious collecting and exhibition track record — in 1983, it was the first U.S. institution to host a major show of Frida Kahlo — the Grey nonetheless has often been confused for a commercial gallery. “We’re known nationally and internationally among the art crowd, but still lots of people in New York don’t know that N.Y.U. has a museum,” Gumpert said.
Image: Grey Art Museum at NYU’s new home at 18 Cooper Square, located on the ground floor, in the NoHo historic district. Designed by Ennead Architects. Photo © Aislinn Weidele/Ennead Architects