Whitney Museum Puts Online 21,000 Works of American Art, By 3,000 Artists

Soir Bleu by Edward Hop­per, 1914.

The trend has now become delight­ful­ly clear: the world’s best-known art insti­tu­tions have got around to the impor­tant busi­ness of mak­ing their col­lec­tions freely view­able online. We’ve already fea­tured the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art, the Los Ange­les Coun­ty Muse­um of Art, the Rijksmu­se­um, and the Nation­al Gallery (as well as new, inter­net-based insti­tu­tions such as the Google Art Project and Art.sy). Today, we bring news that the Whit­ney Muse­um of Amer­i­can Art has joined in as well.

The Steer­age by Alfred Stieglitz, 1907.

“Last week, the Whit­ney Muse­um mas­sive­ly over­hauled its online data­base,” writes Hyper­al­ler­gic’s Bec­ca Roth­feld. “The muse­um of Amer­i­can art expand­ed its online col­lec­tion from a pal­try 700 works to around 21,000. The dig­i­tal reserve now includes over 3,000 pieces by Edward Hop­per, in addi­tion to offer­ings from a wide swathe of art from the Unit­ed States, includ­ing the likes of Mike Kel­ley and Mar­tin Wong.” Roth­feld also notes that all this dig­i­ti­za­tion has hap­pened dur­ing the muse­um’s phys­i­cal move, cur­rent­ly under­way, to a build­ing in the Meat­pack­ing Dis­trict with 63,000 com­bined square feet of indoor and out­door gallery space.

Morn­ing Sky by Geor­gia O’Ke­effe, 1916.

We non-New York­ers have, of course, already booked our flights to expe­ri­ence the Whit­ney’s new digs. But since the build­ing won’t actu­al­ly open to the pub­lic until May, all of us, no mat­ter where we live, will have to con­tent our­selves for the moment with what the muse­um has put online so far. For­tu­nate­ly, it has put a lot online: you can browse their dig­i­tal col­lec­tions by artist here; you’ll notice a great deal of Jack­son Pol­lock, Geor­gia O’Ke­effe, Edward Hop­per, and Andy Warhol already avail­able for your brows­ing plea­sure.

via Hyper­al­ler­gic

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Where to Find Free Art Images & Books from Great Muse­ums, and Free Books from Uni­ver­si­ty Press­es

The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art Puts 400,000 High-Res Images Online & Makes Them Free to Use

LA Coun­ty Muse­um Makes 20,000 Artis­tic Images Avail­able for Free Down­load

The Rijksmu­se­um Puts 125,000 Dutch Mas­ter­pieces Online, and Lets You Remix Its Art

The Nation­al Gallery Makes 25,000 Images of Art­work Freely Avail­able Online

The Get­ty Puts 4600 Art Images Into the Pub­lic Domain (and There’s More to Come)

40,000 Art­works from 250 Muse­ums, Now View­able for Free at the Redesigned Google Art Project

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture as well as the video series The City in Cin­e­ma and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.