Modernisms

By Michael McLeod Abby’s Road Here’s an April 1960 entry, dateline, Katmandu, in the diary of a solitary tourist–a determined Midwestern widow named Abby Weed Grey: “My usual feelers were out, trying to find artists. Other travelers might have been suspicious or reluctant to follow the advice of a hotel clerk, but this was my […]

By G.K. Sharman Say “modernism” and many people think of Picasso, Pollock or Dali. But the artistic movement, which celebrated freedom of expression, abstraction, experimentation and occasional social and political messaging, was global in nature and influence. An upcoming exhibition at the Rollins Museum of Art, which runs between September 17 and December 31, brings […]

Watch<br>“The Picture Is the Window”: Abby Grey and Intrepid Art Collecting

 Lecture: “The Picture Is the Window”: Abby Grey and Intrepid Art Collecting Hosted by Rollins Museum of Art, Rollins College Original Program Date: October 25, 2022 Watch a lecture from Lynn Gumpert, director of the New York University’s Grey Art Gallery, exploring 1960s and early 1970s modernisms in Iranian, Turkish, and Indian art. Selected […]

Museums, Colonial Legacies, and Contemporary Art, Part 3: Expanding Modernism and Addressing Colonialism with Contemporary Art

October 12, 2020 By Saga Beus “Primitivism” went on view at a MoMA that still adhered to its chronological “isms”-based approach to defining modern art, which posited a clear evolution from Impressionism to Post-Impressionism to Cubism, and so on. The exhibition was hindered by its focus on individual artists and on a largely Euro-American progression […]

Listen<br>“The Picture Is the Window”: Lynn Gumpert and Lisa Corrin on Abby Grey and intrepid art collecting

Original program date: March 4, 2020. In conjunction with the exhibition Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection, Lynn Gumpert, Director of the Grey Art Gallery at NYU and Lisa Corrin, Director of the Block Museum of Art, held a conversation on this intrepid woman collector and the way that her legacy might inform global directions for contemporary collectors.

Although the Grey Art Gallery’s exhibition Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Grey Collection, is certainly not the first time its rare collection of postwar art has been on view in recent years, the modern art of these three countries is shown together for the first time to acknowledge the foresight of its major benefactor, as well as founder of the museum, Abby Weed Grey (1902-1983).