Luman Reed's Picture Gallery
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Two West 77 th Street, New York, NY 10024 ● 212-873-3400 ● www.nyhistory.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 3, 2004 CONTACT: TRAVIS STEWART (212) 873-3400, EXT. 263 Luman Reed’s Picture Gallery and Art Collecting in Nineteenth-Century New York A Long-Term Exhibition Opening March 16, 2004 The New-York Historical Society is pleased to announce that, after a two-year hiatus, its Luman Reed Gallery will once again be home to one of the Society’s chief treasures of 19 th century American art, the Luman Reed Collection. The collection includes Thomas Cole’s The Course of Empire (and numerous other works by the founder of the Hudson River School), seminal paintings by Asher Brown Durand, William Sidney Mount, and George Whiting Flagg, and many more. Luman Reed was one of the pioneers of 19 th -century American art collecting. The posthumous donation of his collection in 1858, together with the holdings of The New-York Gallery of the Fine Arts (founded by Reed), transformed the Historical Society into New York City’s premiere art museum in an era before the establishment of such museum giants as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Reed’s collection therefore occupies an important place in the development of American art; in the history of taste, collecting, and patronage; in the history of New York; and in the annals of the New-York Historical Society. The Luman Reed Gallery was created in 1990 to showcase Reed’s collection in a period environment inspired by the gallery in the collector’s own neo-classical townhouse. Starting in 2002, when “The Course of Empire” was loaned to the Tate Gallery in London and then the New York State Museum in Albany, the Luman Reed Gallery was home to the exhibitions The Games We Played: American Board and Table Games from the Liman Collection Gift and Birds of Central Park: Audubon’s Watercolors. In addition to featuring Reed’s collection, the new installation, entitled Luman Reed’s Picture Gallery and Art Collecting in Nineteenth-Century New York, also explores the history of New York art collecting in the nineteenth century, highlighting other important art patrons, including Thomas Jefferson Bryan and Robert L. Stuart, whose collections augment the painting holdings of the Historical Society. Luman Reed’s Picture Gallery and Art Collecting in Nineteenth-Century New York will go on long-term view beginning March 16, 2004. The New-York Historical Society, located at West 77th Street and Central Park West, is open to the public from Tuesday to Sunday, 10a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults; $5 for students and seniors. For general information, the public can call (212) 873-3400. Programs at The New-York Historical Society are made possible in part with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. American Airlines is the official airline of The New-York Historical Society. WNYC Radio is The New-York Historical Society’s valued media sponsor for the 2003-2004 season. PRESS IMAGES ARE AVAILABLE. PRESS CONTACT: Travis Stewart (212) 873-3400, ext. 263 .