April 27, 2015

When the Whitney Museum of American Art opens on Friday, the event will follow much deliberation over how to reframe its collection—literally.

In addition to building a gleaming $422-million tower in the Meatpacking District and conceiving new practices as a museum for the future, the Whitney took on a smaller initiative to give 20 of its most renowned paintings—by Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jasper Johns and others—new frames that are custom-designed, hand-crafted and as historically correct as possible. All will be part of the inaugural exhibit, ”America is Hard to See.”

“We weren’t happy with the frames they had,” said Carter Foster, the Whitney curator who helmed the project to replace frames that clashed with pictures aesthetically or were of dubious taste. “Something like Edward Hopper’s ‘Early Sunday Morning,’ which is an icon of our collection, deserved a better home”…

View the complete Wall Street Journal article.

The Wall Street Journal, April 27, 2015
By Andy Battaglia. Photos by Adrienne Grunwald.

Wall Street Journal: New Framework for Whitney Masterpieces