Phased Reopening: Campus first. Still closed to the public.
Exhibitions on View
COLLECTIONS ON VIEW
African Art from the Permanent Collection
African art has been an integral part of the permanent collection since the Neuberger Museum of Art opened in 1974. In 1999, the collection nearly doubled in size with the major gift of 153 works from the late Lawrence Gussman, a notable collector and resident of Scarsdale, New York.
Gussman’s interest in Africa began in 1957 when he met Dr. Albert Schweitzer at his hospital in Labaréné (Gabon). This first encounter sparked a friendship between them that endured until Schweitzer’s death in 1965. Also sharing Dr. Schweitzer’s strong belief in humanitarian aid, Gussman and his wife returned each year to work at Dr. Schweitzer’s hospital. They both went for over thirty years. It was in Gabon that Gussman’s fascination with the art of Central Africa began; yet despite his annual trips to Gabon, he collected only in Europe and the United States, primarily through auction houses, dealers, and other collectors.
Then and Now: Modern and Contemporary Selections from the Permanent Collection
The Neuberger Museum of Art celebrates the return of some of its most precious treasures after being on national tour across the country for over a year. Included in Then and Noware works by some of our most beloved artists including Milton Avery, Romare Bearden, Stuart Davis, Willem de Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Arthur Dove, Helen Frankenthaler, Marsden Hartley, Hans Hofmann, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and David Smith. Amid these works contemporary art from the collection also are installed, in keeping with the spirit of our founding patron, Roy. R. Neuberger, who was committed to supporting the work of living artists, particularly during the formative years of their careers. As he once observed, “The contemporary world should buy the work of contemporary artists.”
Generous support for this project is provided by the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art and by the Purchase College Foundation.
Current Exhibitions
Color and Motion, Ideas and Dreams: Modern and Contemporary Caribbean and South American Art from the Collection
ON VIEW: Spring 2021
Color and Motion, Ideas and Dreams: Modern and Contemporary Caribbean and South American Art from the Collection explores artistic trends that emerged between the 1960s and 1970s, many of which are evident in the work of contemporary artists practicing today. In the 1960s and 1970s for example, South America witnessed the emergence of new artistic trends based on the exploration of color, form, space, and motion. Challenging representational traditions in vogue in their respective countries, the young artists working at that time were looking into new ways of engaging with the viewer by creating novel visual experiences. By the 1980s, several Latin American artists turned to new forms of figuration but also ventured into Conceptual Art. They engaged with social and political matters and, inspired by performative art and body art, began to use their own body as a support for self-representation and to reflect on questions of liberty, sexuality, memory, and identity.
Selected from the Permanent Collection of the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, SUNY, this exhibition features more than twenty-five works, comprising sculptures, paintings, photographs and prints, created by major Latin American artists, including: Julio Antonio, Engels the Artist, Henry Bermudez, Leda Catunda, Carlos Cruz-Diez, José Luis Cuevas, Arturo Duclos, Lucio Fontana, Carlos Garaicoa, Florencio Gelabert, Ignacio Iturria, Wifredo Lam, Eduardo Mac Entyre, María Martínez-Cañas, Roberto Matta, Almir Mavignier, Marta María Pérez Bravo, Jesús Rafael Soto, Gerardo Suter, Luis Tomasello, and Eugenia Vargas.
Color and Motion, Ideas and Dreams: Modern and Contemporary Caribbean and South American Art from the Collection is curated by Alex Gordon Curator for the Art of Americas Patrice Giasson and organized by the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, SUNY.
Generous Support for Color and Motion, Ideas and Dreams: Modern and Contemporary Caribbean and South American Art from the Collection is provided by the Alex Gordon Estate.
Carlos Cruz-Diez, Chromointerference, 1968, Motorized construction, 30/50, 13 ¼ x 11 ¾ x 7 ½ in (33.66 x 29.85 x 19.05 cm), Collection Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, Gift from the George and Edith Rickey Collection of Constructivist Art, 1973.10.14. Art: © 2020 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Photo: © Jim Frank.
Leda Catunda, Almofandinhas II (Tiny Pillows II), 1989, Mixed media on canvas, 43 x 31 in (109.22 x 78.74 cm), Collection Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, Gift of Edith L. Calzadilla and family in memory of Luis P. Calzadilla, 2009.02.09. Art: © Leda Catunda. Photo: © Jim Frank.
Henry Bermudez, Pájaro con Pinta de Tigre (Bird with a Tiger’s Appearance), 1991, Oil on canvas, 28 x 40 in (71.12 x 101.6 cm), Collection Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, 2009.02.04. Art: © Henry Bermudez. Photo: © Jim Frank.
ConnectiveCollective
ONGOING PROJECT: Spring 2021
A series of artists talks, projects, and workshops looking at healing, justice, and the power of listening.
Presented in collaboration with For Freedoms and the Purchase College Center for Engagement.
Generous support for this project is provided by For Freedoms and the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art.
Open Classroom Gallery: Concentrated Power
March 24 - May 21, 2021
Barbara Ségal’s Dash (1994), a life-sized marble mimicry of a laundry detergent bottle, showcases the artist’s technical mastery while also playing with high and low imagery and material in the late twentieth century.
This canny, elegantly crafted work reaches broadly to the history of sculpture, the politics of mass media, appropriation, and gender politics.
Organized by the curatorial cohort of Art History’s Exhibition course (2020-2021), Concentrated Power offers multiple ways of engaging with a single work in the Neuberger Museum’s permanent collection.
Concentrated Power is organized by Rebecca E. M. Ribeiro, Veronica Murphy, Meg Byron, and Shunyo Aizawa Morgan — the curatorial cohort of Purchase College’s Art History Exhibition course (2020-2021).
The Museum + Curatorial Studies (M+) track within the Art History MA program centers the Neuberger Museum of Art in a pedagogical model that systematically programs connections between Art History, the School of Art + Design, and the Neuberger. M+ students work with the Neuberger’s collection, producing original research, exhibitions, and public programming. They do so with an eye to learning how an arts institution functions—training in skills that will prepare them for careers in the field—and also to rethinking the social role of the arts, tying the values of humanistic learning and critical thinking to the importance of engaged citizenship. In concert with Art History faculty and the Neuberger staff, every M+ cohort will imagine what it means to make a Museum Wide Open.
Upcoming Exhibitions
Lesley Dill: Rush
ON VIEW: Summer 2021
Lesley Dill’s Rush (2006-07) is a visually dazzling, ambitious site responsive work that covers a 20’ x 60’ wall in the Neuberger Museum’s Theater Gallery. This immersive installation is an enormous collage of hundreds of interconnected animal and human figures culled from world spiritual traditions and representing love, death, transcendence, and other themes.
The Neuberger Museum of Art will present Lesley Dill’s Rush, a large, visually dazzling, site- responsive work that premiered at the Museum in 2007 and later was acquired for the Museum’s permanent collection. In this sculptural installation, covering a 20’ x 60’ wall in the Museum’s Theater Gallery, Dill gives visual form to a poetic text by Franz Kafka. Advancing her personal “archaeology of language,” she creates an immersive work that connects the individual viewer to concepts of interior thought through small and large personal and public gestures.
Rush (2006-07) is an enormous collage of hundreds of interconnected animal and human figures culled from world spiritual traditions and representing meditation, death, love, transcendence, and other themes. The figures were cut with a knife from filmy sheets of black photographic foil polished to various shades of silver, backed with silk organza, and then woven together with wire. They combine to create a giant thought cloud emanating from a six-inch seated figure.
Embedded in the collage are letters that spell out a quote from Kafka’s diaries that reads, “The tremendous world I have inside my head. But how free myself and free it without being torn to pieces. And a thousand times rather be torn to pieces than retain it in me or bury it. That, indeed, is why I am here, that is quite clear to me.” As this quote conveys, Rush suggests a dark, even sorrowful mental landscape.
Born and raised in Maine, Dill received her Master of Arts from Smith College in 1974, and her Master of Fine Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art in 1980. She soon emerged as a sculptor and multi-media artist. She has received a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship as well as the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the Anonymous Was A Woman Award, among others. Dill conceived and directed an opera, Divide Light, based on the poems of Emily Dickinson that premiered in at the Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, CA in 2008. In April 2018, the New Camerata Opera Company performed Divide Light in New York City. Dill’s artworks are in the collections of over fifty museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Generous support for Lesley Dill: Rush is provided by the Roy R. Neuberger Legacy Program Endowment and ArtsWestchester, with support from the Westchester County Government.
NEU Picks: A Collaborative Project
ON VIEW: Spring 2021
NEU Picks is a special project drawn from the museum’s permanent collection of over 6.000 objects. Communities close to the NEU were invited to select their favorite work of art and tell us why they love it.
Docents and staff members chose a variety of items. Some were donated by our founding patron, Roy R. Neuberger, while others are more recent acquisitions. Some are regularly on view, while others haven’t been seen in years. The common theme among them is that they are loved.
Feel the personal connection as you see the objects. Learn about the artist, the work, or the technique. And hear why these artworks evoked bold, powerful emotions for the individual who selected it as their favorite.
NEU Picks: A Collaborative Project is organized by the Neuberger Museum of Art and curated by Museum Director Tracy Fitzpatrick.
Generous support for this project is provided by the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art.
Discover What's Now, What's Next and What's Neu!
View Our Calendar of Events
Experience exhibitions of modern, contemporary and African art and art-inspired events in our Philip Johnson-designed building at the heart of Purchase College, State University of New York.
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Visiting the Museum
Address
735 Anderson Hill Road
Purchase, NY 10577
Parking
Museum visitors can park in the West 1 visitor parking lot. To reach the West 1 parking lot from the main entrance, turn left and stay left on Brigid Flanagan Drive. Continue for approximately one mile and the entrance to the West 1 parking lot will be on your right.
To park in the West 1 lot, please use the pay station located near the ADA-accessible handicap parking spaces directly next to the Performing Arts Center. Once you have selected the duration of your stay, please place your receipt face up on your vehicle’s dashboard.
Special Needs Access
The Neuberger Museum of Art is wheelchair accessible throughout the building, including galleries and restrooms. Wheelchairs are available without charge at the museum’s entrance. Gallery stools are available by request.
Please click here for a map to the drop-off point for visitors with special needs. To learn more, please call 914-251-6100 Monday through Friday from 9am - 5pm or 914-251-6117 on Saturday and Sunday from 11am - 5pm.
Click here to report any accessibility barriers you experience on campus.
Hours
Phased Reopening:
Campus first.
Still closed to the public.
Open to the campus community only on Wednesday, Thursday & Friday from 12pm - 5pm. Join our mailing list to receive updates about reopening to the public.
Admission
General Public - $5
Adults 62 and older - $3
Free admission on the first Saturday of every month
Always Free To:
- Members
- Purchase College students
- Purchase College faculty, and staff
- Children 12 and under
- Members of reciprocal museums
As a proud member of the Blue Star Museum collaboration, the Neuberger Museum offers free admission to the nation’s active-duty military personnel and their families, including National Guard and Reserve, from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Tours and Programs
The Neuberger Museum of Art offers education programs which introduce visitors to American art of the 20th century, traditional African art and contemporary art through visitor-centered experiences. The museum staff develops and implements educational programs, under the umbrella of The Phillip and Lynn Straus Center for Education in the Arts, that serve diverse audiences and establish the Neuberger Museum of Art as a regional center for curriculum-based art education.
Tours and Groups
The Neuberger Museum’s docent educators welcome visitors and help them appreciate the art collections presented in our galleries. The art comes alive as you walk the museum with a docent and hear the stories behind the artists and works on view.
To arrange a guided or self-guided group tour, please contact the Education Department via e-mail or phone (914) 251-6110.
Adult Tours ($8 per person)
School Tours ($8 per person)
Pre-K-12 School Tours
Each school visit is unique. We curate your experience by creating classroom connections that tie our African, Modern and Contemporary art directly to your curriculum. Our goal is to help students develop an appreciation for visual art by creating descriptive dialogue that leaves a lasting impression. We are flexible and work with teachers to meet curriculum objectives and learning standards. (Max Group Size 50 students)
NeuKids Program
The Neuberger Museum of Art’s NEU Kids program fills an educational gap by providing field trips to the museum for close to 2,000 local children each year. This includes waived admissions, round-trip school bus transportation, lunch, and guided tours with talented docents who bring the galleries to life! This program is fully subsidized for Title 1 and other qualifying schools.
Membership
The Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, is the premier museum of modern, African, and contemporary art in the Westchester and Fairfield County area. An outstanding arts and education institution, the Museum was conceived to serve as an important cultural resource to its regional, national, and international audiences, and as an integral part of Purchase College.
Donate
Support the Neuberger Museum of Art by contributing to the Annual Fund! Your contribution makes the work we do at the Neuberger Museum possible. Your support allows us to continue caring for our world-class permanent collection, present acclaimed special exhibitions, and produce dynamic education programs. Gifts made to the Annual Fund are 100% tax-deductible within the limits prescribed by law.
If your company has a matching gift program, you can double and sometimes triple your impact! For more information, please contact 914-251-6114 or email nma.development@purchase.edu.
Thank you for your support!
NEU Kids Pack
We’ve been hearing regularly from our school partners that many students do not have access to basic art supplies at home and, in school, the shared crayon box is no longer an option.
Help us address this need by funding a “NEU Kids Pack."
NEU Kids Packs will be backpacks filled with essential art supplies and projects to be delivered to local school children.
About the Neuberger Museum of Art
The Neuberger Museum of Art is a center of teaching and learning for all stages of life. Experience exhibitions of modern, contemporary and African art and art-inspired events in our Philip Johnson-designed building at the heart of Purchase College, State University of New York.
Founded in 1969 with a promised gift of 300 works by Roy R. Neuberger—one of the greatest private collectors, philanthropists, and arts advocates of the twentieth century—the Museum’s collection has grown to over 6,000 objects by artists including Milton Avery, Romare Bearden, Willem de Kooning, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Jackson Pollock.
Our signature biannual award, the Roy R. Neuberger Prize, recognizes the work of exceptional contemporary artists, continuing our founding patron’s dedication to supporting artists early in their careers.
Alongside our permanent collection, critically acclaimed special exhibitions draw local, regional, and international audiences to our galleries in Westchester as well as NEU SPACE l 42, our space in New York City.
Tours, lectures, and programs engage our broad and diverse community. On any day, you can see adults, families, K-12 school children and their teachers, and Purchase College students, faculty, and staff enjoying the museum.
At the Neuberger, appreciating art is active and interactive. Here, students, scholars, artists, and art lovers find common ground to experiment, question, and grow.
About the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art:
Friends Board members provide advice, counsel, and seek to ensure that the Museum has the support and resources needed to realize its goals.
The Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art is a 501(c)(3) organization founded to support the Museum as it fosters a diverse community where art thrives and people are inspired to engage with new ideas. This support enables the Museum to host events for our public and members, produce world class exhibitions, provide art education opportunities for underserved students, and be a cultural ambassador to all those who visit us.