Morris, David Smith, Charles Shaw, and more appeared at the Gallery of Living Art, making Gallatin’s museum one of the premier places for art conversations in Greenwich Village during the 1930s.ĭespite the fame and attention that the Gallery of Living Art received, contemporaries of Gallatin were quick to criticize his university art museum and the type of works he exhibited.
Gallatin’s gallery had a certain dynamism to it as a meeting place for students, artists, and the public at large-artists like Arshile Gorky, John Graham, Ilya Bolotowsky, Byron Browne, Peter Busa, George L.K. The Gallery of Living Art was unique because it allowed both the paintings and the students to give the space life, rather than being a contained, quiet space like other museums of the time, such as the Whitney Museum of American Art or the Museum of Modern Art.
The Gallery of Living Art’s first exhibition opened on Decemat 100 Washington Square Place and featured European painters like Georges Braque, Fernand Leger, Paul Cezanne, and Pablo Picasso there were thirty seven artists featured and fifty eight pieces on display from the American and French schools of painting. Gallatin’s choice of New York University as the repository for his collection his evidence of the university’s efforts to make once exclusionary art available to all audiences. At forty six years of age, the younger Gallatin had a dream that New Yorkers would, in his words, “have an opportunity… at least some of.the newer influences at work in progressive twentieth century painting.” His focus on the public at a time when he believed most twentieth century art to be “in private possession and at dealers” was profound. Gallatin purchased pieces from artists’ studios during his excursions to Paris and it was not long before his collection became too large for his Park Avenue apartment. Gallatin came from a long line of distinguished men who, in the words of a New York Times columnist from 1981, “knew what they wanted and never took no for an answer.” Heir to a large banking fortune and great grandson of New York University founder Albert Gallatin, A.E. In 1927, two years before the Museum of Modern Art opened its doors, Albert Eugene Gallatin established the Museum of Living Art as a repository for his growing collection of French and American artworks it was located at 100 Washington Square East, near today’s Grey Art Gallery. Though New York is home to some of the world’s most well known art museums, few may know that New York University established one of the first contemporary art museums in the city.