Pace Gallery:
Winning the award for gallery most active on social media, Pace’s frenetic Tumblr sports a solid, personal voice and a wide variety of work mostly from gallery artists, but with a few worthy outsiders as well, like Ad Reinhardt and the Simpsons (high and low!).
Gavin Brown:
Much like the gallery’s actual Web site, Gavin Brown’s Tumblr is pretty inscrutable, but it’s also awesome. From the glaring red background to the strange title, it’s all about style. There are random photos, artworks, and dudes with green electric harps. What more could you ask for?
Nurture Art
The art non-profit that makes its home in the basement of 56 Bogart chronicles the residents of Bushwick’s artistic hub. There are extensive interviews of space directors and the artists who make their studios there, and, of course, some shots of local graffiti.
LA Louver
The Los Angeles gallery’s Tumblr is a mixture of behind-the-scenes gallery shots and links to articles and media featuring their artists elsewhere. Of course, if something cool comes along, like a new album from the band Cowboy Junkies, they’re sure to reblog it.
Jen Bekman Projects
The Lower East Side gallery’s Tumblr largely features prints being sold on Bekman’s 20x200, but the blog showcases the gallery’s poppy, colorful aesthetic. There are great series of photos drawn from her Hey Hot Shot! crowd-sourced photography contest as well.
Auction Houses:
Christie’s
Likely the most active auction-house Tumblr, Christie’s rather hilarious blog highlights objects that are coming up for sale. It’s a great way to keep up with what’s going on at the auction house, though for the non-millionaire set, the visual irony of such luxury objects popping up in your feed is a little strange.
Philips de Pury
The contemporary-focused auction house posts a selection of works that they’ve sold, along with the sale prices and date of auction. It’s basic, but the blog’s super high-quality images make it perfect for some window shopping.
Updated: April 5
Museums
Mass MoCA
The Massachusetts museum’s blog largely focuses on what’s going on at its North Adams campus, but that’s probably a good thing — there’s a lot to cover. From concerts to exhibitions to children’s projects, the Tumblr has it all.
The Getty
The Getty’s massive collection anchors its Tumblr, which also sports a notably nice graphic layout. It’s hard to beat the diversity on curated display here, from 2nd century marble sculpture to a selection of glam Herb Ritts photographs.
New Museum
The New Museum’s spare blog posts a variety of content original and not relating to the museum’s current exhibitions. Catch artist interviews, like one with The Ungovernables triennial artist Hassan Khan, and series of snapshots from inside the galleries.
Museum of Modern Art Library
MoMA’s super-accessible, fun, and insightful blog charts the acquisitions of its library. If you want to keep on the hippest of hip art books, this is the place to do it. The photos of the books’ page spreads and intermittent pieces of design criticism only sweeten the deal.
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philly museum’s constantly updated blog provides an idiosyncratic behind-the-scenes view into the museum’s environs and collection. Right now, there are lots of lovely photos of the grounds in bloom.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
LACMA’s Tumblr highlights objects and events at the museum, but it also engages with Tumblr’s online social community, sharing viral videos and noting the news.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
SFMoMA’s blog might be short on the original content, but they’re constantly reblogging fascinating art objects and documents highlighted by other art Tumblrs, like this viral interview of Salvador Dali. Check it out if you need your art mood board updated daily.
National Museum of Wildlife Art
This Wyoming museum concentrates on art depicting the natural beauty of the American west, and, fittingly, its blog features a lot of pictures of animals. As Spring comes on, they’re also posting some amazing vistas from their campus. It’s enough to make any New Yorker jealous.
SculptureCenter
New York’s SculptureCenter maintains a very active Tumblr that works toward the institution’s curatorial goal, focusing on “emerging artists and work that offers new ways of considering sculpture, or furthers the understanding of the discipline and how it can intersect with other mediums.” This one’s all sculpture all the time, so be prepared.
Updated: April 10
The New York Botanical Garden
This museum of plants has a surprisingly active Tumblr that posts plenty of photos of flowers and idyllic landscapes, some from the Garden, others submitted from elsewhere. There’s also one post about a “Moss Milkshake,” which maybe we’d rather not know about.
Other Organizations:
Creative Time
Creative Time uses their blog to publicize their projects — recently, it highlighted the organization’s collaboration with MTV to get art back on TV — but also to share awesome work and worthy causes from all around the art world, like this initiative for immigrant respect.
The performance art biennale uses its Tumblr kind of like a glossy magazine, featuring long-form artist interviews, essays, and videos documenting their signature events. Look forward to this heating up as the next Performa develops.
MTA Arts for Transit
Wondering what’s on the walls of your local subway station? MTA’s art blog provides a guided tour of the city’s underground public art projects. The non-permanent works rotate constantly, so follow or check back often.
Further Resources
— Tumblr’s Annie Werner created this excellent list of all arts-related Tumblrs
— Also valuable is Museum Nerd’s list of museums on Tumblr
— Be sure to check out Tumblr’s art tag page