The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York is selling its former Upper East Side home, designed in 1966 by Marcel Breuer, to Sotheby’s for around $100 million. The auction house will take possession of the five-story brutalist structure in September 2024, after the Frick Collection, its current tenant, quits he. Sotheby’s will relocate its head office there the following year. Sotheby’s CEO Charles F. Stewart told the New York Times that the chance to buy the austere, almost windowless building was “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we couldn’t pass up”.
The fate of the Breuer Building had been in question since 2015, when the Whitney decamped to his Renzo Piano-designed new home in midtown Manhattan’s Meatpacking District after decades in uptown. The Metropolitan Museum of Art for several years exploited the Met Breuer at 945 Madison Avenue, but permanently closed the contemporary art-focused branch in July 2020. The Frick Collection in March 2021 moved his hoard of lavishly framed Old Masters ahead of a planned $160 million renovation and expansion of his home in industrialist Henry Clay Frick’s Golden Age mansion.
The move to the Breuer Building from its current flagship on York Avenue brings Sotheby’s back to the gallery-filled central location it enjoyed more than twenty years ago, when it occupied the former Parke-Bernet Galleries a few doors down Madison Avenue. Although the structure is not historic, Sotheby’s will hire an architect to oversee an interior redesign that preserves the integrity of the building. There are plans for a state-of-the-art gallery and exhibition space, free and open to the public, as well as an auction hall.
“We often refer to the provenance of works of art, and in the Breuer’s case, there is no richer history than the museum that housed the Whitney, Metropolitan and Frick collections,” Stewart said. in a press release. “The acquisition will further set us apart as we continue to transform and innovate for our customers.”
Adam D. Weinberg, the outgoing director of the Whitney, who spearheaded the institution’s move downtown, called the sale “bittersweet,” but noted he’s glad the building continues to serve as a home for art. “Most importantly,” he said in a statement, “this architectural masterpiece – thanks to its status in an iconic neighborhood – will be preserved.”
