An entire century of American art can be seen through the rich holdings of the Whitney's permanent collection. The first half of the exhibition chronicles the development of American art from the exuberant expressions of early 20th Century realists to later modernist experiements in abstraction. The second half, covering 1945 to the present, begins with Abstract Expressionism, a period when America became a leader of the international avant-garde, and extends to the richly varied art of the present.

Founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, The Whitney Museum of American Art is a non-profit organization dedicated to collecting, preserving, interpreting, and exhibiting American Art.

Devoted exclusively to American art with special emphasis on the 20th Century and the work of living artists, the Whitney Museum is the product of a dream of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, a sculptor and local arts patron. The Museum was actually born on Eighth Street in her Greenwich Village sculpture studio. Whitney believed tha living American artists deserved recognition and that a new museum was very much needed to serve them. She accordingly opened what has since become one of the world's most talked-about museums.

In 1954 the museum moved uptown to West 54th Street near the Museum of Modern Art. In order to accomodate the crowds it subsequently attracted, it moved again to its present location.

The trustees who purchased a choice piece of property on Madison Avenue at 75th Street, intended to make the soon-to-be constructed museum a work of art in its own right. Marcel Breuer, an architect, first defined "what it should not look like" - a business, an office of a place of light entertainment. He endeavored to give the building the weight of a skyscraper, the latitude of a bridge, and the feel of a city. He once defined it as bringing "the vitality of the streets to the museum's structure." The building which was completed in 1966, totally broke with traditional ideas of museum architecture. It's modern, yet innovative look, was truly in keeping with the spirit of its Eighth Street founder.

The museum's popular exhibitions make it one of New York's busiest spots on weekends. Due to the large size of the exhibition space, waiting time is usually minimal when long times form. The several dozen annual shows are quite diverse, ranging from one-person retrospectives and group exhibits to thematic and historical and historical surveys.

The Whitney Biennials are invitational surveys of selected works by American artists. Artists show works in painting, sculpture, photography, film and video, many of which have not been previously exhibited. The inclusion of film and video installations in the Biennial underscored a key development in contemporary art, that of artist's accomplishments in expanding the formats of their media within the context of an exhibition space.

The Museum's acquisition program is a vigorous one, with a primary emphasis on the work of living artists. The most highly publicized acquisition in the recent past was the painting Three Flags by Jasper Johns. Two major acquisitions of works by Georgia O'Keefe, Flower Abstraction and Black and White, came to the Museum in connection with an O'Keefe show that presented nine of her works from the Museum's permanent collection.

The Museum's New American Filmmakers series presents ongoing programs and environemental installations of independend film and video discussions are held throughout the year to coincide with special exhibitions, such as a day-long examination of the career of Edward Hopper. A unique independent study program developed by the Museum provides grants to art history majors, allowing them to study with selected artists and critics. Artreach introduces American art to New York schoolchildren with a slide hsow presentation of works in the permanent collection, followed up by guided visits to the Museum.