Spencer & Katrina Trask: Arts Philanthropy & Unity in the Gilded Age

The National Arts Club presents a look at the lives of lives of Spencer and Katrina Trask.

The Trasks, two of the founding members of the National Arts Club, were disturbed by societal disunity. Despite the profound optimism that shaped the world view of New York’s Gilded Age elite, the Trasks came of age in an America that was fractured by Civil War, a New York that was threatened by ethnic and class violence, and that was experiencing all the growing pains inherent in becoming America’s first modern metropolis.

While other Gilded Age patrons were collecting largely European art, the Trasks came to view arts philanthropy as a composite effort that would at once establish a self-consciously American aesthetic and that would be nurtured within cultures designed to foster decorum, creative exchange, and sympathy, as well as values essential to the American republic.











When: Tue., Apr. 26, 2022 at 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Where: The National Arts Club
15 Gramercy Park S.
212-475-3424
Price: Free, donation suggested
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The National Arts Club presents a look at the lives of lives of Spencer and Katrina Trask.

The Trasks, two of the founding members of the National Arts Club, were disturbed by societal disunity. Despite the profound optimism that shaped the world view of New York’s Gilded Age elite, the Trasks came of age in an America that was fractured by Civil War, a New York that was threatened by ethnic and class violence, and that was experiencing all the growing pains inherent in becoming America’s first modern metropolis.

While other Gilded Age patrons were collecting largely European art, the Trasks came to view arts philanthropy as a composite effort that would at once establish a self-consciously American aesthetic and that would be nurtured within cultures designed to foster decorum, creative exchange, and sympathy, as well as values essential to the American republic.

Buy tickets/get more info now