Drawing Center

The Drawing Center is a SoHo museum and the only nonprofit exhibition space in the U.S. to focus solely on the exhibition of works on paper. Every year the center presents four group exhibitions emphasizing the work of emerging artists and one historical exhibition that highlights the work of acknowledged masters and less celebrated artists whose work merits greater attention. Historical exhibitions have included The Prinzhorn Collection: Trace Upon the Wunderblock, Drawings from the Albertina: Landscape in the Age of Rembrandt, Guercino: Drawings from Windsor Castle, Seeing Through Paradise: Artists and the Terezin Concentration Camp, Odilon Redon and Charles Burchfield: The Sacred Woods. The center is located on the ground floor of an old structure with cast-iron façade typical of its neighborhood. It also offers literary readings for both adults and children, which has included such notables as Richard Price, Mary Gaitskill, Amy Hempel, Paul Auster and Edward Albee.

The Drawing Center recently was the source of controversy when it was declared to be a possible candidate for space within the new site of the World Trade Center. At one point the there was a plan for the site to house several cultural organizations and the Freedom Center. Due to objections from a few vocal victim’s families and the New York State Governor, George Pataki, the plans for the site have been reconfigured. The Drawing Center, an arts organization that has a long history of showing a wide spectrum of works, including an exhibition which was critical of the Iraq War, was asked to censor itself in order to be a part of the future reconstruction site (despite the fact that, by the Bush Administration’s own admission, no links were found between the government of Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks). Both the Freedom Center and The Drawing Center, argued that freedom of expression is integral to the institutions and artists involved

As of August 12, 2005, The Drawing Center has been removed from contention as one of the groups to occupy the new World Trade Center, and is currently exploring relocation possibilities near the South Street Seaport.