The School occupies an historic building with an extraordinary cultural history ranging from Daniel Chester French's maquette for the Lincoln Memorial being made in a current sculpture studio, to the hanging of de Kooning's Attic (Metropolitan Museum of Art) in the lobby in the early 1950s. The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in April 1992.

Entrance to the Studio School

Before it was the site of the original Whitney Museum of American Art, the building was the vital center of the art world in New York, where Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney had her own studios, entertained the elite of the arts and arranged exhibitions of the promising and unknown. One of the greatest patrons of the arts this country has known, she supported, over a period of many years, the painters, sculptors, composers and others who are now respected as masters in their fields. Among them were John Sloan, Albert Pinkham Ryder and Maurice Prendergast, who all had their first one-man exhibitions in the building. Thomas Hart Benton was commissioned to create a large fresco, Carl Walters executed a pair of glass doors for the entrance (both now in the Whitney Museum) and Robert Winthrop Chanler created an ornate fireplace and bas-relief ceiling which has remained intact in the Whitney Studio.

The School plays an integral role in the history of the building, continuing the tradition of drawing, painting and sculpture, which began with the artist studios on MacDougal Alley and continued with the Whitney Museum of American Art. The building, remodeled with many large skylit rooms when it became the Whitney Museum, beautifully accommodates the needs of the School.