New York art lovers have a delightful story of friendship and printmaking to discover at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The Brinkman Trilogy, on view through January 2027 in the Robert J. Hurst Family Galleries on the museum’s first floor, celebrates three artists whose shared adventure began more than a century ago.
In 1918, New York artists Glenn O. Coleman, Eugene Higgins, and George “Pop” Hart set out for Brinkman, Oklahoma, to visit Higgins’s homesteading family. The rural town — named for Joseph Brinkman, cofounder of Oklahoma’s first bank and Higgins’s brother-in-law — became the unlikely setting for a burst of creative energy. Each artist made prints inspired by the frontier town, and the three bodies of work together became known as the Brinkman Trilogy.
All three artists later became fellows of the Whitney Studio Club, the lively artists’ association founded by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney that was the direct forerunner of the Whitney Museum itself. The works are presented through the Whitney Museum of American Art, Frances Mulhall Achilles Library and Archives, a reminder that some of the museum’s happiest stories live in its own archives.
The exhibition is free and open to the public, making it an easy, joyful stop the next time you are in the Meatpacking District. Happy City News loves a rediscovered story — especially one where art, travel, and friendship meet.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
