Confirming rumors that had the artwork global abuzz this spring, Sotheby’s stated Thursday that it has bought the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 1966 Brutalist construction through Marcel Breuer on Madison Avenue and can transfer its headquarters there from York Avenue in 2025.
The acquire value of the Breuer construction used to be now not disclosed, however two folks concerned within the deal, who requested now not to be recognized as a result of they weren’t licensed to publicly speak about it, put the determine at about $100 million.
“It’s bittersweet,” Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitney’s director, stated about parting with the construction completely. “I know every square inch of it and think it’s one of the great art monuments out there. It’s a masterpiece of modern architecture.”
Charles F. Stewart, Sotheby’s leader government, known as the Breuer construction “a once in a lifetime opportunity that we couldn’t pass up,” including that “the location couldn’t be more ideal for our client base” to view artwork, attend gross sales and meet with experts.
“The chance to buy an iconic museum in any major city — this doesn’t happen,” Stewart endured. Although the public sale area will rent an architect to reimagine the Breuer’s inner and create a salesroom inside the five-story construction — it’s in a landmark district however does now not itself have landmark designation — Stewart stated Sotheby’s used to be “committed to preserving the integrity of what’s loved about the building,” together with the foyer.
Weinberg, who plans to step down subsequent fall after twenty years, stated the Breuer now not made sense for the Whitney to retain, for the reason that the museum has doubled its exhibition house in its new Renzo Piano-designed headquarters, which additionally has a extra out there and alluring presence.
“It was built for a time of large easel paintings,” Weinberg stated of the Breuer. “For us it became clear it did not really make sense to have a divided Whitney — how do you divide it?” he added. “Also. we don’t want to be landlords.”
For Sotheby’s, the Breuer represents a possibility to support on its York Avenue location, shifting nearer to the guts of the Upper East Side artwork global, a space that incorporates huge galleries like Gagosian, Mnuchin and Acquavella, and the place smaller galleries are proliferating. The Madison Avenue location will even permit for extra foot visitors to Sotheby’s exhibitions, specifically its pre-auction previews, which offer individuals of the general public the chance to view prized artistic endeavors prior to they disappear into personal arms.
The transfer represents a go back to Sotheby’s roots, for the reason that the public sale area as soon as occupied the Parke-Bernet Galleries throughout Madison Avenue, the place Gagosian is now.
The deal — which Sotheby’s and the Whitney refused to verify in reaction to queries from The Times in April — in any case resolves the destiny of the Breuer construction, which has hung within the stability for the reason that Whitney moved down to the meatpacking district in 2015. Would the Whitney in the end take again the construction and perform uptown in addition to downtown? Would the Breuer construction finally end up as some rich individual’s personal place of dwelling or a complicated retail retailer?
Many puzzled whether or not the Whitney would make a a hit new get started in that scrappier a part of Manhattan, having develop into so intently connected with the Breuer. What used to be the Whitney with out Breuer? What used to be Breuer with out the Whitney?
Leonard A. Lauder, the Whitney’s tough chairman emeritus, first of all adverse the museum’s transfer downtown as dangerous, and insisted that the Whitney dedicate to now not promoting the Breuer for twenty years. But Lauder in the end was a convert to the brand new location and it used to be named for him: the Leonard A. Lauder Building.
“When the discussion started, it was before the completion of the High Line, before Hudson Yards started and before a lot of the major building boom,” Lauder informed The Times in 2016. “I was afraid, in truth, that the Whitney would be a lonely institution down in a neighborhood that was waiting to happen. Well, it’s happening.”
Indeed, the Whitney in its new location has develop into an integral a part of that community’s rejuvenation — serving to spur endured residential and business building within the space across the High Line and Hudson Yards.
After the Whitney’s departure, the Metropolitan Museum of Art leased the construction for 6 years, presenting recent artwork within the Met Breuer. Among its noteworthy presentations had been “Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible,” that includes works of art in quite a lot of states finishing touch, in addition to the Kerry James Marshall retrospective, “Mastry.”
The Met spent about $15 million on its improve of the Breuer — together with a substantial quantity at the eating place — and it value the museum about $17 million a yr to run the construction.
In 2021, the Met passed off the distance to the Frick Collection, which has used the construction whilst its 1914 Gilded Age mansion on Fifth Avenue undergoes renovation.
Under Sotheby’s, the Breuer construction at East seventy fifth Street will come with gallery and exhibition house in addition to an public sale salesroom. Still to be decided is whether or not the public sale area will stay the below-ground eating place.
Sotheby’s will take over the Breuer construction in September 2024, when the Frick leaves. It plans to transfer within the following yr.
The modernist construction used to be designed through Breuer, a Hungarian-born, Bauhaus-trained architect. Although many disliked the construction’s brooding, stolid structure, the Breuer got here to be regarded as the best house during which to display twentieth and twenty first century artwork and sculpture. “It married form and function, beautifully,” Michael Kimmelman wrote in The New York Times in 2015. “The exhibition floors weren’t just practical and flexible. They were also particular, refined and muscular, with their gridded concrete ceilings. Outside and in, the mix of gray granite, concrete and slate conveyed extreme finesse.”
Founded in 1930, the Whitney opened in 1931 on West Eighth Street close to Fifth Avenue. In 1954, the museum moved to an expanded website online at 22 West 54th Street prior to shifting to the Breuer in 1966. Before deciding to pick out up stakes and transfer downtown, the Whitney regarded as a number of redesigns at its Breuer location, together with expansions through Michael Graves, Rem Koolhaas and Renzo Piano.
In 2024, Sotheby’s is to open its new flagship galleries in Hong Kong and Paris. Later this yr, Sotheby’s will open Gantry Point in Long Island City, N.Y., a 240,000 sq. foot facility for artwork dealing with and garage.
Sotheby’s will retain possession of the headquarters it has occupied since 1980 at 1334 York Avenue — increasing it in 2019 — and the place the corporate will proceed to perform till it strikes to the Breuer construction.
“I was very appreciative that they believed we will be great stewards of this building,” Stewart stated of the Whitney. “Open to the public, presenting art — the use of the building will be consistent with the reason it was built. There is a continuum.”