NYU’s Grey Art Museum Director Lynn Gumpert to Retire

Lynn Gumpert, who has served as director of New York University's Grey Art Museum since 1997, will retire in mid-April 2025. During her tenure, the museum (formerly the Grey Art Gallery) has presented more than 80 exhibitions focused on a wide range of topics, from abstract art from the Arab world to downtown galleries in New York City, expanded its collection, and moved to a larger and more accessible location at 18 Cooper Square.

As museum director, curator, administrator, and art historian, Gumpert raised the profile of the Grey by presenting ambitious exhibitions and engaging with faculty and students from across the university. Thanks to a significant gift from donors Dr. James Cottrell and Joseph Lovett, the Grey Art Museum will open the Cottrell-Lovett Study Center, a research space for scholars of all levels that offers access to the museum's permanent collection of American, modern Asian, and Middle Eastern art.

NYU President Linda G. Mills said, "The Grey has an impact on New York's cultural life that has far exceeded its size, with wonderful, carefully curated shows that have delighted art lovers and contributed to Greenwich Village's-and NYU's-reputation as a center for the arts. For more than 25 years, Lynn Gumpert has been the Grey's steward, as well as an exceptional colleague, a curator of groundbreaking exhibitions, and a guardian of the NYU Art Collection. We thank her, and wish her well."

Provost Gigi Dopico added, "The scholarship that the Grey has generated over nearly half a century is remarkable. With landmark exhibitions, from The Downtown Show in 2006 to Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU's Abby Weed Grey Collection in 2019, the Grey exemplifies New York University's commitment to innovative ways of looking
at art."

Exhibition highlights organized during Gumpert's tenure include Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s-1980s, Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run-Galleries in New York City, 1952-1965, and Americans in Paris: Artists Working in Postwar France,1946-1962, the critically-acclaimed exhibition that inaugurated the museum's new location earlier this year.

The Grey Art Museum has also contributed to New York City's cultural scene by hosting shows that otherwise would not have traveled here. They include The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal; Art after Stonewall, 1969-1989; Diane Arbus: Family Albums; and Maya Lin: Topologies.

Gumpert is co-curator of Make Way for Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde, organized with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Musée de l'Orangerie. It opened at the Grey on October 1 and is accompanied by a book, Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde (Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris/Flammarion). Gumpert also edited Pow! Right in the Eye, Weill's 1933 memoir (University of Chicago Press, 2022), and co-edited Americans in Paris (Grey Art Museum, NYU/Hirmer, 2022).

"It's been an enormous honor and privilege to lead the Grey Art Museum for more than 28 years. Our holdings of modern Iranian, Turkish, and Indian art donated by our founder Abby Weed Grey in 1975 align wonderfully with New York University's global vision. Likewise, our exceptional holdings of downtown New York School artworks through the 1990s complements NYU's Special Collections at Bobst Library," said Gumpert. "And, with our recent move from Washington Square East to 18 Cooper Square, our renovated facilities are now much more welcoming."

Prior to joining NYU, Gumpert served as curator and senior curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art from 1980-88 and was a consulting curator for The Gallery at Takashimaya from 1992-95. She wrote the first substantial monograph on French artist Christian Boltanski (Flammarion, 1992; 1994), and in 1999, she was honored by the French government with the distinction of the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.

Gumpert earned a BA from the University of California at Berkeley, and an MA in art history from the University of Michigan. A member of the Association of Art Museum Directors, she has served on various boards, including the Hauser & Wirth Institute.

Deputy Director Michèle Wong will be interim director.

About the Grey Art Museum
After nearly a half century on Washington Square, the Grey Art Gallery is now the Grey Art Museum, New York University. The Grey's new facility occupies the ground floor of a brick and iron building in the NoHo Historic District, its open storefront façade facing out onto a busy pedestrian thoroughfare. The new location accommodates three galleries-expanding exhibition space by 40 percent-and, on the lower level, the Cottrell-Lovett Study Center, which will enable more direct access to the collection for students, faculty, and researchers.

In 2025, the Grey Art Museum celebrates its 50th anniversary. Over the last five decades the institution has organized exhibitions that have encompassed all the visual arts: painting, sculpture, drawing and printmaking, photography, architecture and decorative arts, video, film, and performance. In addition to producing its own exhibitions, which often travel to other venues in the United States and abroad, the museum hosts traveling shows that might otherwise not be seen in New York and produces scholarly publications that are distributed worldwide.

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