1. The Whitney Museum is New York’s go-to institution for the crazy-quilt history of early- and mid-20th-century American art, and its new permanent-collection display, “American Legends: Calder to O’Keeffe,” is one of its best in years.

    — The New York Times’s Roberta Smith on American Legends: From Calder to O’Keeffe.

  2. American Legends: From Calder to O’Keeffe opens today. Each gallery on the Museum’s fifth-floor will be devoted to presentations of the leading artists of the first half of the twentieth century, providing an in-depth look at the beloved work of Edward Hopper, Stuart Davis, and other icons of the Whitney’s collection. Charles Demuth (1883–1935), My Egypt, 1927. Oil on fiberboard, 35 3/4 × 30 in. (90.8 × 76.2 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney   31.172

    American Legends: From Calder to O’Keeffe opens today. Each gallery on the Museum’s fifth-floor will be devoted to presentations of the leading artists of the first half of the twentieth century, providing an in-depth look at the beloved work of Edward Hopper, Stuart Davis, and other icons of the Whitney’s collection.

    Charles Demuth (1883–1935), My Egypt, 1927. Oil on fiberboard, 35 3/4 × 30 in. (90.8 × 76.2 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney   31.172

  3. “When you get to New York take your pictures under your arm and show them to anyone you think might be interested. … You will just have to find your way as best you can. It seems to me very odd that you are so ambitious to show your paintings here, but I wish the best for you.” Georgia O’Keeffe in a letter to Yayoi Kusama, which is on view in our Kusama retrospective. Isn’t O’Keeffe’s handwriting beautiful? As a young woman living in Japan, Kusama found O’Keeffe’s address in a Who’s Who reference book at the American Embassy in Tokyo. The two began a correspondence which turned into a friendship. 

    “When you get to New York take your pictures under your arm and show them to anyone you think might be interested. … You will just have to find your way as best you can. It seems to me very odd that you are so ambitious to show your paintings here, but I wish the best for you.”

    Georgia O’Keeffe in a letter to Yayoi Kusama, which is on view in our Kusama retrospective. Isn’t O’Keeffe’s handwriting beautiful?

    As a young woman living in Japan, Kusama found O’Keeffe’s address in a Who’s Who reference book at the American Embassy in Tokyo. The two began a correspondence which turned into a friendship.