Gay Gatherings: Philip Johnson, David Whitney and the Modern Arts explores interactions at the Glass House among eight gay men who profoundly shaped 20th-century artistic culture: architect Philip Johnson and his longtime partner, curator/collector David Whitney; composer John Cage; choreographer Merce Cunningham; ballet impresario Lincoln Kirstein; and artists Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol.

Coincident with the 50th anniversary of New York’s Stonewall Uprising in 1969, a watershed in the contemporary gay rights movement, and the 70th anniversary of the Philip Johnson’s completion of the Glass House in 1949, Gay Gatherings underscores an essential element of the site ‘s history that has not been fully presented as part of its public interpretation. “The exhibition highlights the Glass House as an intellectual and artistic gathering place,” says Thomas Mellins, co-curator of the show, “where these men’s work was collected, exhibited, and performed.”

While the Glass House served as a salon from its beginnings, it became even more so once Johnson was joined in New Canaan by David Grainger Whitney, the man who would be his partner, beginning in 1960, until the end of both of their lives in 2005. Whitney, 33 years Johnson’s junior, brought not only a passion and talent for art, but also the perspective of a younger generation to Johnson’s world. Johnson described Whitney by declaring, “David has an eye”— a phrase Johnson applied rarely and just to those with the most extraordinary abilities as curators, collectors, and patrons.

Gay Gatherings is organized by Thomas Mellins and Donald Albrecht.

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