Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art
Lloyd Goodrich was born in Nutley in 1897. Goodrich was a childhood friend of the painter Reginald Marsh and the son of a prominent painter. He initially had hoped to be an artist himself, but lacking the talent to make a successful career, Goodrich began writing about the arts instead and became a preeminent Americanist art historian.
In 1930 he joined the staff of the newly founded Whitney Museum of American Art as a curator, finally serving as the director of the Museum from 1958 to his retirement in 1968. Goodrich presided over the construction of the Museum’s current location at Madison Avenue and 75th Street.
Goodrich was a leading author and advocate of American Art. He was an early champion of American artists including Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Reginald Marsh, Albert Ryder and Georgia O’Keefe. Goodrich died in 1987.