The Whitney Museum of American Art is located in the Meatpacking district of Manhattan. The museum’s Annual and Biennial exhibitions have long been a venue for less well-known artists whose work is showcased there.
The oldest art museum in the country’s elegant capital city is the Corcoran Gallery, founded by financier William Wilson Corcoran in 1869. Now part of the Smithsonian, its collection runs the gamut, from works by 19th-century greats like Mary Cassatt, Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent to modern and contemporary artists such as Walker Evans, Man Ray, Edward Hopper and Jacob Lawrence.
Ten miles out to sea, tiny Monhegan Island is Maine in miniature, a 700-acre artist’s rendering of everything that makes this stretch of coast called Down East great. On its eastern side, towering headland cliffs greet the pounding Atlantic, while from the western (village) side hikers can set out on 17 miles of wooded trails that criss-cross the island. Only about 60 people live here year-round. There are no cars, and no paved roads; until 1984 there wasn’t even electricity. What there is is peace and quiet—and artists, lots of artists.
