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The Greatest Grid

kfoster — Sun, 30 Oct 2016 23:20:50 +0000

The Greatest Grid kfoster Sun, 10/30/2016 - 19:20

The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011

The street grid is a defining element of Manhattan.

Established in 1811 to blanket the island when New York was a compact town at the southern tip, the grid was the city’s first great civic enterprise and a vision of brazen ambition. It is also a milestone in the history of city planning and sets a standard to think just as boldly about New York’s future.

Visit the Greatest Grid website to explore educational resources, interactive maps and more.

Exhibition Category

History

Online

Summary

Explore the history of Manhattan’s famous grid of numbered streets and avenues—the largest feat of urban planning in the city's history.

Seasonal Opening Date

America's Mayor

kfoster — Sat, 29 Oct 2016 23:22:04 +0000

America's Mayor kfoster Sat, 10/29/2016 - 19:22

America's Mayor: John V. Lindsay and the Reinvention of New York was on view at the Museum of the City of New York from May 5, 2010 through October 3, 2010. This online version of the exhibition allows you to explore many of the objects and images that were on view at the Museum and to learn about the controversial tenure (1966–1973) and dramatic times of New York's 103rd mayor.

Visit the online exhibition

Exhibition Category

History

Online

Summary

Learn about the controversial tenure (1966–1973) and dramatic times of New York's 103rd mayor, John V. Lindsay.

Seasonal Opening Date

Reginald Marsh

kfoster — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 23:27:26 +0000

Reginald Marsh kfoster Wed, 10/19/2016 - 19:27

Reginald Marsh (1898-1954) is well-known as an American realist painter and printmaker who was based in New York City.

But few people are aware of his accomplished use of photography to create life studies for some of his best-known work. His photographs record the dress, body language, and activities of everyday New Yorkers during the 1930s and 1940s, and served as a sketchpad for his paintings, watercolors, and prints. The 1,567 photographic prints and 588 35mm strips of negatives donated to the Museum of the City of New York by Felicia Marsh, comprise Marsh’s photographic archive and provide remarkable insight into the artist’s working methods.

Additionally, the Museum holds a collection of 223 drawings and watercolors made by Marsh for the planning and implementation of his famous U.S Customs House mural. Commissioned in 1936 by the Treasury Relief Art Department, the mural was intended to fill the rotunda of the massive building at the foot of Manhattan and link the United States Customs Service and New York’s harbor to maritime exploration of the past. These prepratory works provide an example to the importance of sketching to Marsh, while demostrating his incorporation of photography into his working method at the time.

This exhibition is presented in the form of three essays by scholars of Reginald Marsh’s work: Marilyn Cohen, Katharine J. Wright, and Sasha Nicholas. Each considers a different aspect of Marsh’s life and work, shedding light on his artistic process and influences. Many of the photographs, drawings, and watercolors illustrating the essays are striking images in themselves, capturing public pleasures or private moments amid the churn of workaday life.

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Exhibition Category

Art and Design

Online

Summary

Reginald Marsh (1898-1954) is well-known as an American realist painter and printmaker who was based in New York City.

Seasonal Opening Date

Worth & Mainbocher

kfoster — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 23:23:49 +0000

Worth & Mainbocher kfoster Wed, 10/19/2016 - 19:23

Demystifying the Haute Couture

In 1860, Englishman Charles Frederick Worth (1825-1895) founded a Parisian atelier that defined the luxurious standards of the haute couture and set high fashions stylistic course for the balance of the 19th century.

Almost seven decades later, Chicago-born Mainbocher (Main Rousseau Bocher, 1891-1976) perfected those standards while designing in Paris and later transported his Parisian-based skills across the Atlantic to New York. In so doing he modernized the language of the couture, streamlining it to suit the lifestyle of the socially prominent 20th century New York woman.

We invite you to view 119 stellar garments produced by these two designers garments owned and worn by fashionable New York women and now in the care of the Costume and Textile Collection of the Museum of the City of New York and to explore them from the outside-in. This web presentation combines comprehensive catalogue entries with social histories and also provides detailed technical observations on the details of their construction and internal finishing techniques. Through this close reading and analysis, we hope to demystify some of the apparent wizardry of the Houses of Worth and Mainbocher, and to shed light on the genius of their art and craft.

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Exhibition Category

Fashion

Online

Summary

Explore the fashion legacy of Worth & Mainbocher.

Seasonal Opening Date