Becoming the capital of fine art

In New York there seems to be no chance of escaping the name Rockefeller. Therefore I`d like to start my brief informational post on how New York City became a--or the--center of Fine Arts with the name Rockefeller too. The reason why the Rockefeller family and the Fine Art scene of New York are connected is quite simple: because of love. In 1901 John D. Rockefeller Jr. married Abby Aldrich who once studied art history. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller began collecting paintings, watercolors, and drawings by a number of contemporary American artists as well as a number of European modernists including Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso in 1925. Today she is known for being the driving force behind the establishment of the Museum of Modern Art--one of world´s top museums, opened in 1929. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller could not hope for financial support from her husband who was not interested in contemporary art. Therefore she established a supporting network of companies and prominent individuals to secure the ongoing operations as well as purchases of new art pieces. Rockefeller´s son Nelson continued the collecting of Modern Art and his mother`s commitment to the Museum of modern art. Besides Nelson Rockefeller donated his grandfather´s house at Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. All in all it can be said that the Rockefeller family helped New York to establish its new image as a leading cultural center.

When the Museum of Modern Art was opened in the 1930s the homegrown art scene began to take shape. After her uncle Solomon R. Guggenheim established his foundation in 1937, Peggy Guggnheim opened her Art of This Century Gallery dedicated to Abstract Expressionist art as well as Cubism and Surrealism--styles of art history which have been called "degenerate art" at this time due to WWII. Peggy Guggenheim helped launch the careers of many Manhattan-based artists e.g. Jackson Pollock or Willem De Kooning who became the core of Abstract Expressionism. In the 1950s and ´60s artists as Robert Rauschenberg or Jasper Johns helped establishing New York as a global Fine Art center and probably thanks to Andy Warhol and the Pop Art movement in the mid-60s New York left all European Fine Art metropolises far behind.

Since Pop Art New York has seen so much: The birth of conceptual and performance art, the Fluxus movement with Yoko Ono and John Lennon proclaiming "War is over!" on Times Square, Christo installing over 7.000 orange Gates in central Park and the upcoming of Graffiti and Street Art. The major museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum and the Guggenheim Museum show so-called blockbusters covering any kind of art movement. The New Museum and other smaller institutions focus on narrower pieces of art history. And more than 800 galleries - top names as Zwirner, Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth and Goodman as well as countless smaller galleries--offer all kinds of art as well for free admission.