About this archive

An independent research catalog of the Whitney Museum of American Art's public collection, built from the museum's open-access archive (released under CC0) and its public REST API.

The site mirrors 27,425 artworks attributed to 4,107 artists, with metadata refreshed regularly. Each artwork has its own page; you can filter by classification, browse by artist, and search across titles and media.

What's in the data

• Artwork title, artist(s), display date, classification, medium, dimensions, credit line.
• Accession number and parsed acquisition year (when derivable from the prefix).
• Image references — hot-linked to whitneymedia.org; no images are re-hosted here.
• Exhibitions per artist (artwork-level exhibition history isn't published).
• On-view status, when known.

Methodology

Two data sources feed the catalog: the museum's CC0-licensed CSV (collection-only artworks, minimal fields) and the public API (deeper metadata including biographies, ULAN/Wikidata IDs, descriptions, images, and biennial flags). Where they differ, the API record is taken as the canonical grain — the CSV flattens portfolio works (e.g., a 155-print portfolio appears as 155 rows in CSV but 1 record in the API). The CSV's reproduction-credit field is merged in where present.

Licensing

This is an independent research project, not affiliated with or endorsed by the Whitney Museum of American Art. Built by Ryan Santos.

• Open-access CSV data: CC0 1.0 — public domain.
• API-derived metadata and images: noncommercial / educational use with attribution. Images are served from whitneymedia.org and are not redistributed.

Data snapshot generated 6/16/2026, 7:14:40 PM. Source pipeline: whitneymuseum/open-access + whitney.org/about/website/api.