The New York Historical

Knicks in 4 💙 🧡 The New York Historical's statues of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass on Central Park West and 77th Street have a new look 🏀

Chief Seattle was a Suquamish and Duwamish leader whose 1854–55 speeches about the interconnectedness of people and land have become foundational statements about ecological respect and Indigenous stewardship. This collage-like print by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith is an ode to Chief Seattle. Its composition suggests a world that is at once interrelated and fractured. Within its geometric sections appear modern symbols: a dolphin caught in a net, a recycling symbol, and a transport truck. By translating Chief Seattle’s legacy into contemporary visual language, Quick-to-See Smith links historical Indigenous knowledge to present-day ecological concern. See this work in "House Made of Dawn: Art by Native Americans 1880 to Now, Selections from the Hsu-Tang Collection," on view through August 16 in our galleries. 🖼️ Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Salish/Shoshone/Metis), Ode to Chief Seattle, 1991. The New York Historical, Promised gift of Agnes Hsu-Tang and Oscar Tang, The Hsu-Tang Collection. Image Courtesy the estate of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York.

Go Knicks 🏀 A bit of NYC history trivia: Knickerbockers were originally what the pants worn by Dutch settlers to New Amsterdam (which would become New York) were called. Washington Irving, writing under the pen name Diedrich Knickerbocker, popularized the term in his satiric "A History of New York, From the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty." Knickerbocker came to stand for any New Yorker who could trace their roots back to the town's Dutch origins. The popular New York symbol, Father Knickerbocker, emerged in the late 19th century and was featured across popular culture. In 1854, Manhattan's first baseball team was named the New York Knickerbockers. The New York Knicks basketball team was formed, and named, in 1946. Their first logo shows Father Knickerbocker with a basketball 🏀 📷 1) Father Knickerbocker: A New York Rag, composed by Edwin E. Wilson, 1907. University Of Colorado Boulder – Digital Sheet Music Collection 2) Knickerbockers, ca . 1925. Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art 3) Washington Irving, A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, 1809 4) Father Knickerbocker. March., composed by William A. Collard, 1911. Johns Hopkins Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection 5) Knickerbocker Nine baseball club, 1864. Rutgers University 6) New York Knicks original logo

Opening on June 18, 2026 🎉The Tang Wing for American Democracy Coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the United States, the completion of The New York Historical's new Tang Wing will allow visitors to more deeply engage with America's founding and the complex stories of its peoples. The wing's inaugural exhibition is "Democracy Matters," an exploration of the original promise of the American experiment and of those who sought to realize its founding ideals of liberty and equality. The Tang Wing will also feature new state-of-the-art classrooms that will expand our ability to educate students on civic engagement and democratic principles, plus an extraordinary new conservation studio to increase our capacity for work on our monumental collections. Mark your calendar! 📆 Learn more about the Tang Wing at https://bit.ly/4g0KrFV. 📷 Rendering of the 76th Street Façade of the Tang Wing for American Democracy at The New York Historical, designed by RAMSA | Robert A.M. Stern Architects. Credit: RAMSA / Alden Studios

Now on view on our fourth floor! "Revolutionary Women" reveals the multi-facet roles of women during one of the most important moments in American history. https://lnkd.in/eTeuHm2Z

Birds, books, furs, fabrics and more...through the Dutch's global trading empire, New Amsterdam was a place where a surprisingly wide range of goods were available. In fact, Peter Stuyvesant and his wife raised parakeets in their farmhouse in what is now NYC's East Village. In "Old Masters, New Amsterdam," on view through August 30, paintings help us envision life in the little Dutch settlement that would become New York.

In the process of writing “official” history, sexual identities considered deviant have often intentionally gone unmentioned. This poster from our collection is for the first National Coming Out Day, held in 1988. It calls out the fact that there have been historians who have purposefully hid queerness from the biographies of great writers such as James Baldwin and Virginia Woolf, and talented musicians such as Bessie Smith and Cole Porter. By removing an important part of these figures' identities from the story, historical narratives erased a part of who they were—and didn’t allow young queer people the opportunity to identify role models. Here's to telling the full story. Happy #PrideMonth 🌈 📷 Designer: Laurie Casagrande, Publisher: Gay and Lesbian Community Action Council American, founded 1987, "Unfortunately, History Has Set the Record a Little Too Straight," 1988.

Just putting this reminder of what Penn Station used to look like here... 📷 Interior entry hall and ticket office of Penn Station, 1911. 📷Interior main concourse of Penn Station, 1911. 📷Penn Station arcade, 1911. 📷Penn Station, Seventh Avenue and 33rd Street, undated (ca. 1910). High-angle view from the northeast. All the collection of The New York Historical.

“My work is at the crossroads between death and rebirth. Discarded materials have been recycled, so they’re born anew, because the artist has the power to do that.” —Betye Saar During the 2020 pandemic, Betye Saar began rendering her collection of Black dolls in watercolors, bringing them to life in explorations of childhood, ritual, dreams, and make-believe. Long engaged with mysticism, astrology, and the religious practices of the African diaspora, Saar collects dolls that she feels hold energy from their previous lives—an energy she amplifies in her doll watercolors. See more in "Betye Saar's Black Dolls," on view through October 4. 🖼️ Betye Saar, Floating Black Doll in Mystic Sky, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects Los Angeles, California. Photo: Paul Salveson

"Saar’s reimagining offered these figurines a new context and a life separate from — or possibly in spite of — their original intentions, transforming their meaning, alchemizing negative imagery into something potent, something positive." Betye Saar's Black Dolls is on view now at The New York Historical. Read more about the exhibition in Hyperallergic at https://bit.ly/4wQXOhQ