Repairs Planned for Former Studio of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney

The ghost of arts patron, museum founder, and sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (looking rather sculptural herself in the ca. 1895 photo at right) can rest a little easier tonight. Her once glorious and now crumbling Greenwich Village sculpture studio, located in the backyard of the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture (NYSS), will soon undergo much needed renovations. The New York Times reports that Whitney’s 90-year-old former workroom, rife with what an NYSS representative described as “worrisome cracks,” has received a $50,000 grant from the World Monuments Fund to finance repairs that will include “stabilizing the delicate crumbling corner [of the ceiling] with vegetable-fiber paper, acrylic adhesive, and temporary beams.”