Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney could afford to do anything she wanted. She became a respected artist, but with wealth to spare, she used her resources to help many more artists realize their dreams.
Gertrude Vanderbilt was born in New York City on January 9, 1875. The Vanderbilts were one of America’s richest families. Gertrude enjoyed expensive private tutoring and attended the prestigious Brearley School before marrying Harry Payne Whitney, a wealthy polo player, in 1896.
Gertrude grew up amid many beautiful paintings and sculptures collected by her father. She painted watercolors as a child, but as an adult, she decided to become a sculptor. Besides attending classes at the Art Students League, she took private lessons from leading artists in New York and in France.
Gertrude didn’t want her art to be praised just because she was rich. When she began to exhibit her sculptures in public, she used an alias in the hope that her work would be judged on its merit alone. Thousands of people saw her sculptures at the Buffalo Exposition of 1901 and the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904.
In 1908, her sculpture, “Pan” won an award from the New York Architectural League. When “Paganism Immortal” was honored by the National Academy of Design in 1910, she finally took credit under her own name.
Whitney herself had been impressed by the artists she met when she opened a studio in Greenwich Village. While she worked in a classical, realistic style, others were taking art in new, challenging directions. They struggled to create a modern style while often struggling simply to survive. Many of the same experts who praised Whitney looked down on these artists, but she used her wealth to buy their paintings and give them gallery space to exhibit their works.
Her own work evolved into a dramatic, monumental style. She created a memorial to the Titanic, and created powerful monuments to the soldiers of World War I after performing volunteer hospital work in France in 1914. She designed a victory arch in New York and the award-winning Washington Heights Memorial in 1922, as well as a memorial at the spot where American troops first landed in France in 1917.
As Whitney’s career flourished, her art collection grew. She continued to support artists with contributions to the Friends of Young Artists and the Society of Independent Artists. She built the Whitney Studio Galleries in 1928 to house modern art, but needed even more space to display her own collection.
Whitney offered to give her collection for free to the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art and pay for a new wing to house it, but the museum’s directors weren’t interested in modern American art. She answered that rejection by building her own museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, which opened in 1931.
Today, two of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s sculptures are on exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum. Meanwhile, the Whitney Museum has continued to grow since her death on April 18, 1942. It serves as a monument to Whitney’s enduring commitment to American artists.
For more information about the Whitney Museum of American Art go to www.whitney.org.