Art Market Views – Lindsay Pollock: Art Market Views | Governor Paterson Dons Hard Hat for Parrish Museum Groundbreaking

Monday, July 19, 2010

Governor Paterson Dons Hard Hat for Parrish Museum Groundbreaking

Governor Paterson and other museum officials at Parrish museum groundbreaking. (Director Terrie Sultan in pattern dress to Patterson's right). Photo: Phyllis Tuchman

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Governor Paterson donned a hard hat and wielded a shovel this morning on a grassy field in Long Island for the groundbreaking of the new $25 million Parrish Art Museum.

Paterson, accompanied by museum director Terrie Sultan, trustee Dorothy Lichtenstein and assorted others, kicked off the estimated two-year construction project. The 14-acre Southampton site will house a new 34,000 square foot building, slated to open in 2012.

Designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, the sleek low-slung one-story building will rise on the north side of Montauk Highway in Watermill and double the footprint of the current space. The building includes 12,000 square feet of exhibition space, with 7,500 dedicated to the permanent collection of American art, along with educational and multi-purpose spaces, offices, on-site storage, a gift shop and a café.

The new Parrish is the first art museum to be built on the East End of Long Island in over a century.

The groundbreaking begins just one year after the initial design was announced. Nearly seventy percent of the $25 million budget has already been raised.

The Parrish was founded by lawyer Samuel Parrish in 1897 to house his Italian Renaissance and Greek and Roman Statuary. In the 1950s, the museum began collecting works by American artists, with an emphasis on painters who worked on Long Island, including William Merritt Chase and Childe Hassam.

Art critic Phyllis Tuchman attended the groundbreaking and kindly shared her photos with us. See more below.