A famed auction house has purchased a famed art museum’s old brutalist home, which will become its flagship location in the coming years.
Sotheby’s has shelled out more than $100 million for the Breuer Building at 945 Madison Ave., where the Whitney Museum was located until its move to 99 Gansevoort St. in the Meatpacking District eight years ago. From 2016 to 2020, it was the home of the Met Breuer museum.
The granite Museum Mile icon is currently the temporary location of the Frick collection, which is set to return to its renovated mansion in late 2024.
The British-founded fine arts broker announced the purchase and move on the first of the month.
Although the specifics of the deal weren’t made public, insiders familiar with the deal told the New York Times it was around $100 million.
“We often refer to the provenance of artwork, and in the case of the Breuer, there is no history richer than the museum which has housed the Whitney, Metropolitan and Frick collections,” Sotheby’s CEO Charles F. Stewart said of the Upper East Side landmark, built in 1966 by Marcel Breuer, in a press release.
Once the Frick is back in its East 70th Street compound, “custodianship of The Breuer Building will pass to Sotheby’s,” the release added.
The new space will be less than two blocks from Sotheby’s first American offices at 980 Madison Ave. and several avenues over from its current flagship in a former cigar factory and Kodak warehouse, which it has called home since 1980.
Once Sotheby’s takes over, the Breuer will house its gallery and exhibition spaces — which, as at its current location, will be free and open to the public — as well as its New York auction room.
The auction house also plans to do an architectural review of the five-story modernist behemoth, after which it will renew and restore certain internal spaces, including the lobby.
In addition to the major Manhattan purchase, Sotheby’s is also soon set to open a 240,000-square-foot operational facility in Long Island City and, next year, flagship galleries in Hong Kong and Paris.