A $30,000 grant from the National Trust of Historic Preservation will in part support public tours of the New York City art studios where Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875-1942) began her vision of an American art museum.

Whitney's series of studios along West 8th Street in Greenwich Village housed her own sculpture practice at a time when New York placed little value on women artists, contemporary art or American art, in general. Her studios gave birth to the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1931.

Now housing the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, Whitney's initial space is a fascinating historic landmark just now opening for free, 45-minute public tours on June 3, on a limited basis.