Showroom Gotham: How New York City became the International Art Capital

“View of the Picture Gallery.” From Mr. Vanderbilt's House and Collection, described by Edward Strahan, vol. 4. (Boston: G. Barrie, 1883–84)

During the Gilded Age, collectors and patrons made New York City the headquarters for art in the United States and the world. In this course, we will discuss the exploits of these tastemakers and the fruits of their endeavors as Gotham rose to international economic and cultural preeminence. Throughout the course we will focus on a transformative group of women collectors whose efforts ensured that the city’s prominence as both economic and artistic forces would be universally recognized. Join as we examine how a generation of ambitious civic leaders managed to establish New York City as a rival to the great art and culture capitals of Europe. We will question how a city like New York entered a burgeoning art market without a national model. Did the city follow long-established European patterns of patrimony, or did it strike out on its own? 

Students will learn about early collectors who helped establish New York’s bona fides; the major figures of the Gilded Age such as William Henry Vanderbilt and Henry Clay Frick who founded institutions like The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Frick Collection; and the female luminaries of this era, among them Catharine Lorillard Wolfe and Louisine Havemeyer, who helped create the city’s cultural reputation. How and why did the business, cultural, and political interests of collectors and Gilded Age titans converge in New York? How did prominent female figures stand out in a time when their voices were often muted by their male counterparts? Join us for this fascinating exploration into the ascendancy of the metropolis. 

Tuesdays, 7:00 - 8:30 PM
February 7- February 28
$150 (4 sessions)

Meet your instructor

Margaret R. Laster

 Margaret R. Laster (Ph.D., Graduate Center, CUNY) is an independent art historian and curator of American art and material culture, with a specialty in histories of collecting and patronage. She has held curatorial and research posts at such as museums as the New-York Historical Society, the Freer Gallery of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her publications include New York: Art and Cultural Capital of the Gilded Age (coeditor, 2019) and Tastemakers, Collectors, and Patrons: Collecting American Art in the Long Nineteenth Century (coeditor, forthcoming). Laster has taught at City College, Parsons, and Christie’s, among other institutions, and served as a consultant at the Center for the History of Collecting at the Frick Art Reference Library.