Parrish Art Museum Information

Inspired by the natural setting and artistic life of Long Island's East End, the Parrish Art Museum illuminates the creative process and how art and artists transform our experiences and understanding of the world and how we live in it. The Museum fosters connections among individuals, art, and artists through care and interpretation of the collection, the presentation of exhibitions, publications, educational initiatives, programs, and artists-in-residence. The Parrish is a center for cultural engagement, an inspiration and destination for the region, the nation, and the world. About the Collection The light and landscape of Eastern Long Island have drawn artists to the region since the Long Island Railroad extended its service to Southampton in 1870. Members of New York’s Tile Club visited Bridgehampton, East Hampton, Montauk, Greenport, and Shelter Island in 1878, and William Merritt Chase established the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art, the first school in America devoted to plein-air painting, in 1891. World War II saw the departure of many notable artists from Europe to the US, and many of these émigrés visited the area. American artists of the New York School followed, such Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning, and Esteban Vicente. For the past 60 years, the East End has been home to a veritable pantheon of modern and contemporary artists, among them Fairfield Porter, Larry Rivers, Jane Freilicher, Roy Lichtenstein, April Gornik, Cindy Sherman, Eric Fischl, and Dorothea Rockburne. The Museum’s holdings consist of more than 3,000 works ranging from early 19th-century landscape paintings through American Impressionism and into the 20th- and 21st centuries. In addition to those names above, it includes such important artists as Childe Hassam, John Sloan, James Whistler, Dan Flavin, and John Chamberlain, as well as members of the dynamic contemporary art scene Ross Bleckner, Chuck Close, Elizabeth Peyton, Jack Youngerman, and Joe Zucker.