Louise Nevelson Will Barnet Daughters of the Revolution Shopping for Sculpture Obamas on the Lookout for Art Louise Nevelson in London Louise Nevelson Exhibit Opens in London Hans Hofmann

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Kolodney would eventually become the Y’s adult education director from 1934 to 1969, and he saw the studio-based art center as fundamental to his aim of making the Y “a vital force in the artistic, literary and educational life of the city.”

Similarly, the center’s first director, Saul Raskin, would explain that it “had nothing to do with the creation of great artists, and everything to do with the enhancement of the lives of everyday men and women.”

“The Y had an adult education program at a time when there were no adult education programs,” co-curator Amei Wallach told ArtInfo. “And it had a belief in art as important for the enhancement and enrichment of life at a time when there was very little belief in art in America. So although these attitudes have proven to be very important in this country, when it started out, it was really quite radical.”

Not only were its beginnings radical, the Y’s art center has had a remarkable record in attracting artists to its teaching staff who would later make a significant mark on the history of art.

Both Louise Nevelson and Ibram Lassaw taught there as early as the 1930s, and subsequently artists as respected as Philip Pearlstein and Will Barnet were on the faculty. Betty Woodman taught there almost as soon as she arrived in New York in 1978, and both the art historian Leo Steinberg (in 1951) and artist Gregory Crewdson (in 1990) pretty much got their first professional starts at the center.

The show includes 75 works by current and past faculty members in addition to wide ranging documentary and archival material.

“It’s a very odd show,” Wallach said, “because some of these people were very much ahead of their time, some of these people were of their time, and some of these people were off in a totally different, unexpected directions. It will show people where we’ve been, and where we’re going.”