History of the Academy
The National Academy Museum and School is a tripartite institution. It is an honorary association of American artists with a museum and a school of fine arts. Founded in 1825 as the National Academy of Design by such leading artists as Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, and Thomas Cole to "promote the fine arts in America through instruction and exhibition," the Academy continues to play a critical role in preserving and fostering the visual arts in America. Through a program of exceptional exhibitions in the Museum and quality instruction in the School, the Academy serves as a link to the art of our past, as well as a bridge to the art of our present and future.
National Academicians are professional artists who are elected to membership by their peers in one of four categories: painting, sculpture, graphic arts, and architecture. Members both past and present include many leading artists. Notable among them are Albert Bierstadt, Louise Bourgeois, Frederic E. Church, Chuck Close, Richard Diebenkorn, Thomas Eakins, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Gehry, Horatio Greenough, Charles Gwathmey, Winslow Homer, Jasper Johns, Maya Lin, Tom Otterness, I. M. Pei, Robert Rauschenberg, Dorothea Rockburne, John Singer Sargent, Wayne Theibaud, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Andrew Wyeth.
History of the Building
In September 2011 the National Academy opens its newly renovated building. The Academy’s renovation takes its aesthetic inspiration from the original Huntington Mansion, a graceful Beaux Arts building located on Manhattan’s Museum Mile on Fifth Avenue and the Academy’s home since 1942.
For the first 40 years of its existence the National Academy had no permanent home. The earliest exhibitions were held at 287 Broadway and in rooms over the Arcade Baths at No. 39 Chambers Street.
Soon thereafter, the Academy occupied Clinton Hall, where the Annual Exhibitions were held until 1840. Between 1841 and 1865 the Academy occupied buildings at Broadway and Leonard Street and later at 663 Broadway. In 1860 a building site at 23rd Street and Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue South) was purchased for the erection of the first permanent home of the Academy. Designed by architect Peter B. Wight, the structure was a Venetian Gothic Revival building, which opened in 1865 and housed the offices, school, and exhibition facilities.
A New York City landmark, the site was sold in 1899 to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
Between 1900 and 1940 the Academy was again without a permanent home. The School was located at 109th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, while the Annual exhibitions were held in the galleries of the American Fine Arts Society. Plans had been developed by the leading architectural firm of Carrère and Hastings for a large building to be built in upper Manhattan, but were never realized because of financial and logistical problems.
In 1942 the Academy opened the doors at its current headquarters, a Beaux-Arts style mansion, on the "Millionaires Row" portion of Fifth Avenue at 89th street. The mansion was originally the home of Archer Milton Huntington (1870-1955) and his wife, sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington (1876-1973). Huntington was the heir to the fortune amassed by his father, railroad magnate Collis Huntington, an owner of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads, among others. A major philanthropist, Archer Huntington was also a naturalist and a scholar who specialized in Spanish history, art, and literature. He is best remembered as the founder of the Hispanic Society in New York City, the Mariners Museum in Newport News, VA, and, with his wife, Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina.
In 1902, Archer Huntington purchased several properties along Fifth Avenue between 89th and 90th Streets, including a comparatively small house at number 1083. In 1913, he hired the architect and interior designer Ogden Codman, Jr., to enlarge the house, turning it into the mansion it is today. Codman, who was a colleague and friend of Edith Wharton, tripled the size of the residence by adding a large wing at the back, opening on to 89th Street. He remodeled the existing interiors in the French Renaissance Revival and neo-Grec styles he favored. The second floor was designed for entertaining; on the third floor were the living quarters for Archer Huntington; and, after his marriage in 1923, his wife had a five-room suite on the fourth floor. A number of small bedrooms for the more than 25 servants were located on the fifth and sixth floors. An expansive space on the fifth floor, which had a large skylight, was refitted as the sculpture studio for Anna Huntington.
The Huntingtons lived in this house until 1939, when they gave the building and surrounding properties to the National Academy, of which Anna Hyatt Huntington was a member and of which both were very supportive. The couple then moved to their country estate. Following Archer Huntington's death in 1955, Mrs. Huntington maintained a studio and a small apartment in the Academy's building until shortly before her death at the age of 97. Today the building has two full floors of exhibition space, while other floors are used for administrative offices and storage. While the galleries, which had originally been living areas, were renovated for exhibition use, much of the original architectural detail and hardware remain. The Huntington Mansion stands as an architectural gem on the Upper East Side of New York.
