Rubin Museum of Art
The Rubin Museum of Art is a museum dedicated to the collection, display, and preservation of the art and cultures of the Himalayas, the Indian subcontinent, East Asia and other regions within Eurasia, with a permanent collection focused particularly on Tibetan art. It is located at 150 West 17th Street between the Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) and Seventh Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City.
The museum originated from a private collection of Himalayan art which Donald and Shelley Rubin had been assembling since 1974. In 1998, the Rubins paid $22 million for the building that had been occupied by Barneys New York, a designer fashion department store that had filed for bankruptcy. The building was remodeled as a museum by preservation architects Beyer Blinder Belle. The original six-story spiral staircase was left intact to become the center of the 25,000 square feet (2,300 square meters) of exhibition space.
The museum opened on October 2, 2004, and displays more than 1,000 objects including paintings, sculpture, and textiles, as well as ritual objects from the 2nd to the 20th centuries. The new facade on 17th Street and the five floors of galleries were influenced by Tibetan art, and were conceived by New York-based museum architects Celia Imrey and Tim Culbert. Its graphic identity was conceived by graphic designer Milton Glaser.
Besides exhibitions based on the museum's permanent collection, it also serves as a venue for national and international traveling exhibitions. The museum is affiliated with the Himalayan Art website to advance the study of Himalayan arts and culture.