The Drawing Center

In December 2010, The Drawing Center launched ReDraw: The Capital Plan for 35 Wooster Street with the purchase of a 2,000-square-foot unit on the second floor of 35 Wooster Street, which will replace its leased space at 40 Wooster Street.

Plans for the new space have been designed by Claire Weisz and WXY Architecture + Urban Design, an internationally-recognized New York–based firm. ReDraw’s architectural program addresses specific exhibition, educational, and operational requirements, reinforcing The Drawing Center's mission to present the highest-quality cultural programming in galleries proportioned to facilitate a meaningful viewer experience—attributes that have made the institution one of the most respected, beloved, and distinctive non-profits in New York City.

The building project will connect the existing ground floor space to the newly-acquired second floor space and the lower level of the building. A new bookstore and a sky-lit Drawing Room gallery will join the existing visitor services desk and Main Gallery on the ground floor level. Offices and administrative spaces will move to the second floor, and the renovated lower level will accommodate a new education room, a Viewing Program meeting room, and the “Drawing Room 2” gallery, which will feature an audio and video media system for exhibitions and public programs. Integrating these spaces into one building will provide The Drawing Center with 50% more contiguous programmatic space.

The Drawing Center has suspended on-site programming as construction takes place.

Please check back for information about off-site projects and programs during this period.

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The Drawing Center presents Sean Scully: Change and Horizontals, which begins its transcontinental tour at Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, from January 13–February 11, 2012, then travels to Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, UK, from March 2-July 8, 2012, Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna e contemporanea, Rome, from March 14–June 9, 2013 and The Drawing Center, New York, from September 26–November 10, 2013. This intensely focused survey is comprised of acrylic, ink, graphite, and masking-tape drawings from 1974–75—presented together for the first time in over 30 years—as well as two large-scale paintings from the same period and the artist’s personal notebooks. Culled from two distinct series, the Change and Horizontals drawings—executed in London and New York respectively—highlight the importance of color and form within Scully’s abstractions. Color is always rooted in a particular place, and form manifests the self. Impressions of each city are fundamental to these drawings, as location plays a key role in the artist’s life and oeuvre; as the artist stated in 2006, “People tend to think of abstraction as abstract. But nothing is abstract: it’s a self-portrait. A portrait of one’s condition.” Scully’s move from London to New York City in 1975 marked a stylistic breakthrough to a period during which he became more engaged with the tones and textures of the metropolis that surrounded him. Sean Scully: Change and Horizontals is co-curated by Joanna Kleinberg and Brett Littman of The Drawing Center. A selection of watercolors made by Scully in 2005 while an artist-in-residence at Villa Massimo in Rome will be chosen by Peter Miller, independent curator, and included in the exhibition at Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna e contemporanea, Rome.

Above: Sean Scully, Change #7 (detail), 1975. Acrylic and tape on paper, 22 1/2 x 30 2/3 inches. Courtesy Neo Neo Inc, New York. Photo © Sean Scully.