Grey Art Museum

The Grey, as its fondly called, is the perfect example of what a university museum can be. We venture here often. To look and learn, and to travel without leaving home.

Shows, which span topic and medium, focus on how artists translate their worlds into visual stories. From Post-War French Abstraction to Modern painting from Iran, Turkey, and India. From art by lesser-known female artists to art created after Stonewall.

If art has a truth and an idea in it, it's usually brought to light here. We always leave with the distinct feeling of having visited other worlds. The cities where artists live. And the places they dream up for us.

This is a museum founded with a purpose and soul. A mission to advance art history and visual literacy at NYU. It started in 1927 as the Museum of Living Art, and was the first American institution to exhibit works by Picasso, Léger, Miró, Mondrian, and Arp. In 1974, it was renamed after philanthropist Abby Weed Grey, who donated a groundbreaking collection of modern art from Asia and the Middle East. After decades on Washington Square, it relocated to Cooper Square in 2024, adding glorious new spaces to better showcase the permanent collections and rotating exhibitions.