Whitney Museum of American Art

The Whitney Museum of American Art exists today because of a blunt rejection. In nineteen twenty-nine, the wealthy sculptor and patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney offered her massive personal collection of nearly five hundred contemporary American artworks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a gift. The Metropolitan Museum of Art declined the donation, viewing the modern, experimental pieces as unworthy of its halls. Undeterred, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney decided that if the establishment would not provide a home for living American artists, she would build one herself. She founded her own museum just two years later, ensuring that American creativity remained the rule rather than the exception.