Jumeirah Essex House is committed to stay close to our community and to stay Always in touch with the Park. Never out of touch with the City!
A very important aspect of our New York community is the Arts. With that in mind, we have created our very own Art Program, headed by our curator, Katherine Gass. The art program is anchored around 6 components: Our curator on staff, Artist-in-residence program, Lobby art exhibit, The Designers at the Essex House, Photography Contest, and our Culinary Arts.
Curator on staff
The art program is headed by our curator Katherine Gass. We are proud to be the only hotel in New York to have a curator on staff, enabling us to use art as a mode of bringing the community to our guests.
She is in charge of the rotating exhibits in our lobby art gallery and our collaborations with local cultural institutions.
Prior to joining the Jumeirah Essex House Ms Gass launched the James Company Contemporary Arts Project and held posts at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Chase Manhattan Bank Art Collection, Curt Marcus Gallery, and the Aldrich Museum of Art. She is a member of the International Association of Professional Advisors, the National Organization of Women Owned Businesses, and Art Table, a national organization for leasing women in the arts. She serves on the board of Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture and is a board member of the Sadie Nash Leadership Project. She received a degree in painting and Art History from Ohio Wesleyan University and earned an MA from New York University.
Lobby Art Exhibit
The refurbishment of the hotel included the creation of an art gallery space within the lobby of the hotel. This space was specifically created with the intention of housing rotating art exhibits. The “Heart of Central Park” is the first exhibit to take form here.
The “Heart of Central Park” exhibit is a collaboration with the Museum of the City of New York and Magnum Photos, in the form of an exhibition of historic images of Central Park curated by Gass from their archives that dates from the mid-1800s to the present. The exhibition, which will be on view for one year, is housed in the new lobby gallery created expressly for that purpose.