Gertrude Vander Whitney

Gertrude Vander Whitney (1875-1942), American sculptor, art patron, and founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was born in New York City, daughter of American industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt. After marrying financier and sportsman Harry Payne Whitney in 1896, Whitney began studying art with private tutors in America and Paris. In 1907 she opened a gallery in Greenwich Village and the following year won a prize at the National Academy of Design for her sculpture Paganism Immortal (1907).

Between 1910 and the outbreak of World War I (1914-1918), Whitney worked on large-scale fountain sculptures, including Aztec Fountain (1910), installed in the courtyard of the Pan American Building in Washington, D.C.; and Arlington Fountain (1910, bronze, Whitney Museum); and Fountain of El Dorado (1915).

During World War I, Whitney volunteered to direct a field hospital in Juilly, France. She made sketches of soldiers, nurses, and civilians, which she later incorporated into her series of small bronzes called Impressions of the War. Some of these bronzes served as models for larger monuments, such as Washington Heights Memorial (1921, bronze) in New York City. Other public commissions include Titanic Memorial (1931, granite) in Washington, D.C.; Buffalo Bill (1923, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY); and the Peter Stuyvesant Monument (1939, Stuyvesant Square, NY).

Whitney started the Whitney Studio Club in 1918 as an organization to provide artists with financial support. It also served as a place for artists to socialize, draw, and exhibit and sell their work. Whitney offered her large collection of contemporary American works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 1929, and was turned down. The following year, she opened the Whitney Museum of American Art in Greenwich Village.