The Picture Is the Window, the Window Is the Picture
The extraordinary memoir of Abby Weed Grey, a Minnesotan who became a cultural emissary, friend and patron of artists worldwide, and, in 1974, the founder of New York University's Grey Art Gallery and Study Center. Here, she describes her vision of “one world through art.” She believed that art, as a universal language, could serve as a potent vehicle of knowledge, communication, and understanding.
Contributor Bios
Abby Weed Grey, the oldest of four children, was born on October 23, 1902, to Paul Charles Weed and Emily Weed in St. Paul, Minnesota. She grew up in St. Paul, attending both elementary and high school there. In 1920 Grey attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She married Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Edwards Grey in 1928. After his death, she began collecting contemporary art, both from the United States and abroad. Truly multicultural before her time, Abby Weed Grey achieved what she set out to do, not only encouraging and sponsoring contemporary artists, but ensuring that their works would be seen and studied in the future. In 1974, via The Ben and Abby Grey Foundation, founded for the encouragement of art, she donated one million dollars to NYU—in the spring of 1975 the Grey Art Gallery and Study Center was completed. Grey continued to collect art, and by 1979 she had made nine trips to Asia and had collected over 600 artworks from artists in Egypt, Greece, Iran, India, Japan, Turkey, Pakistan, and her hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota. On June 2, 1983, Abby Weed Grey died of cancer in St. Paul at the age of 80 years.
Open Access
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