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After nearly a half century on Washington Square, the Grey Art Gallery, New York University’s fine arts museum, will reopen in a purpose-designed, larger, and more visible space at 18 Cooper Square in lower Manhattan on Friday, March 2, 2024. With this transformational move, the Grey will be renamed the Grey Art Museum.
The Grey’s new facility occupies the entire ground floor of a venerable brick and iron building in the NoHo Historic District, its storefront façade facing out onto a busy pedestrian thoroughfare at the intersection of the East Village and NoHo. The new premises at 18 Cooper Square accommodates three galleries—expanding exhibition space by 40%—and a new study center enabling more direct access to the collection for students, faculty, and researchers. In addition to the study center, the lower-level houses art preparation/ fabrication shops, storage, and several offices.
“Our new home at 18 Cooper Square is an ideal platform from which to play an even larger and more integral role in the life of the university and the downtown arts community,” says Lynn Gumpert, Grey Art Gallery Director. “Because many of NYU’s provostial centers and institutes are housed next door, we will be able to collaborate even more extensively with the cultural and intellectual spheres of NYU’s global network and enhance our abilities to serve the needs of students.”
The game-changing move is made possible in part by a generous gift from Dr. James Cottrell and Joseph Lovett, longtime art patrons and social activists. The couple has also donated more than 100 works of contemporary art (from a promised 200), drawn from their extensive art collection focusing on downtown artists. One of the new galleries will be named the Cottrell-Lovett Gallery and the research facility, the Cottrell-Lovett Study Center.
