Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 

• 1071 Fifth Ave (at 89th St) Upper East Side
• (212) 423-3500
• Subway: 4, 5, 6 to 86th St | Get directions
• A map can be found here

Opening Times Mon–Wed, Fri, Sun 10am–5:45pm; Sat 10am–7:45pm

Admission $18, seniors and students with ID $15, children under 12 accompanied by an adult free. Sat 5:45–7:45pm pay what you wish

The Guggenheim is as famous for its landmark building—designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and restored for its 50th birthday in 2009—as it is for its impressive collection and daring temporary shows. The museum owns Peggy Guggenheim’s trove of Cubist, Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist works, along with the Panza di Biumo Collection of American Minimalist and Conceptual art from the 1960s and ’70s. In addition to works by Manet, Picasso, Chagall and Bourgeois, it holds the largest collection of Kandinskys in the U.S. In 1992, the addition of a ten-story tower provided space for a sculpture gallery (with park views), an auditorium and a café.

The website can be accessed here

(info from Timeout and hopstop, images from photographersgallery.com and timeout.com )

Whitney Museum of American Art

• 945 Madison Ave (at 75th St) Upper East Side
• (212) 570-3600
• Subway: 6 to 77th St | Get directions
• A map can be found here

Opening Times Wed, Thu, Sat, Sun 11am–6pm; Fri 1–9pm

Admission $18; seniors, adults 19–25 and students $12; ages 18 and under free

Like the Guggenheim, the Whitney is set apart by its unique architecture: It’s a Marcel Breuer–designed grey granite cube with an all-seeing upper-story “eye” window. When Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, a sculptor and art patron, opened the museum in 1931, she dedicated it to living American artists. Today, the Whitney holds about 18,000 pieces by about 2,700 artists, including Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning, Edward Hopper (the museum holds his entire estate), Jasper Johns, Louise Nevelson, Georgia O’Keeffe and Claes Oldenburg. Still, the museum’s reputation rests mainly on its temporary shows, particularly the exhibition everyone loves to hate, the Whitney Biennial. Launched in 1932 and held in even-numbered years, the Biennial remains the most prestigious (and controversial) assessment of contemporary art in America. A new museum building next to the High Line in the Meatpacking District is planned for 2015.

The website can be accessed here

(info from Timeout and hopstop, images from 1fmediaproject.net and artobsreved.com)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art 

• 1000 Fifth Ave (at 82nd St) Upper East Side
• (212) 535-7710
• Subway: 4, 5, 6 to 86th St | Get directions
• A map can be found here

 

Opening Times  Tue–Thu, Sun 9:30am–5:30pm; Fri, Sat 9:30am–9pm

 

Admission  Suggested donation $25, seniors $17, students $12, members and children under 12 free

 

Occupying 13 acres of Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which opened in 1880, is impressive in terms both of quality and scale. Added in 1895 by McKim, Mead and White, the neoclassical facade is daunting. However, the museum is surprisingly easy to negotiate, particularly if you come early on a weekday and avoid the crowds. In the ground floor’s north wing sits the collection of Egyptian art and the glass-walled atrium housing the Temple of Dendur, moved en masse from its original Nile-side setting and now overlooking a reflective pool. Antiquity is also well represented in the southern wing of the ground floor by the halls housing Greek and Roman art, which reopened in 2007 after receiving an elegant makeover. Turning west brings you to the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas collection; it was donated by Nelson Rockefeller as a memorial to his son Michael, who disappeared while visiting New Guinea in 1961. A wider-ranging bequest, the two-story Robert Lehman Wing, can be found at the western end of the floor. This eclectic collection is housed in a re-creation of his townhouse and features Bellini’s masterful Madonna and Child. Rounding out the ground-floor highlights is the American Wing on the northwest corner. Its Engelhard Court reopened in spring 2009 as part of the wing’s current revamp. Now more a sculpture court than an interior garden, it houses large-scale 19th-century works in bronze and marble—and one of its three fountains is by Tiffany.

 

The website can be accessed here

 

(info from Timeout and hopstop, images from newyorkstatesearch.com)

The Morgan Library & Museum

The Morgan Library & Museum

• 225 Madison Ave (at 36th St) Murray Hill
• (212) 685-0008
• Subway: 6 to 33rd St | Get directions
• A map can be found here

Opening Times  Tue–Thu 10:30am–5pm, Fri 10:30am–9pm, Sat 10am–6pm, Sun 11am–6pm

Admission  $15, seniors and students $10, children under 12 free

This Madison Avenue institution began as the private library of financier J. Pierpont Morgan and is his artistic gift to the city. Building on the collection -Morgan amassed in his lifetime, the museum houses first-rate works on paper, including drawings by Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Picasso; three Gutenberg Bibles; a copy of –Frankenstein annotated by Mary Shelley; manuscripts by Dickens, Poe, Twain, -Steinbeck and Wilde; sheet music handwritten by Beethoven and Mozart; and an original edition of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol that’s displayed every yuletide. In 2006, a massive renovation and expansion orchestrated by Renzo Piano brought more natural light into the building and doubled the available exhibition space

The website can be accessed here

(info from Timeout and hopstop, images from newyork.diarystar.com and teaattrianon)

The Museum Of Modern Art (MOMA)

The Museum Of Modern Art (MOMA) 

• 11 W 53rd St (between Fifth and Sixth Aves) Midtown West
• (212) 708-9400
• Subway: B, D, F, M to 47–50th Sts–Rockefeller Ctr; E, M to Fifth Ave–53rd St | Get directions
• A map can be found here

Opening Times  Mon, Wed, Thu, Sat, Sun 10:30am–5:30pm; Fri 10:30am–8pm.

Admission  $25, seniors $18, students $14, children under 16 free.

For discounts, order your tickets in advance online at moma.org. Fri 4–8pm free. Film tickets free with museum admission; screenings-only admission $12, seniors $10, students $8, children under 16 free.

After a two-year redesign by Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi, MoMA reopened in 2004 with almost double the space to display some of the most impressive artworks from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. The museum’s permanent collection now encompasses seven curatorial departments: Architecture and Design, Drawings, Film, Media, Painting and Sculpture, Photography, and Prints and Illustrated Books. Highlights include Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory and Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, as well as masterpieces by Giacometti, Hopper, Matisse, Monet, O’Keefe, Pollock, Rothko, Warhol and many others. Outside, the Philip -Johnson–designed Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden contains works by Calder, Rodin and Moore.

The website can be accessed here

(info from Timeout and hopstop, images from Timeout and artknowedgenews.com )