Brooklyn’s in the house — at the new Whitney Museum

May 18, 2015 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Visitors to the Whitney's new museum in the Meatpacking District check out Basquiat's painting “Hollywood Africans.”

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Basquiat lives — at the Meatpacking District’s new crowd magnet, the Whitney Museum.

A painting by the Brooklyn-born superstar, who died tragically young in 1988, has pride of place in the inaugural exhibition at the Whitney’s new building.

The work by Jean-Michel Basquiat that’s on display at the jaw-dropping new arts venue overlooking the High Line is a 1983 work called “Hollywood Africans.”

The powerhouse museum, founded by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1930, opened up its new place at 99 Gansevoort St. on May 1.

The debut exhibit, “America Is Hard to See,” includes several works by artists who were born or now live in Brooklyn, plus Brooklyn-themed paintings.

Take a look.

Here’s a detail from the Basquiat painting.

That’s Brooklyn-born Lee Krasner’s pink-hued painting, “The Seasons,” behind a Mark di Suvero sculpture. Krasner painted the work in 1957, the year after her husband, famed artist Jackson Pollock, died in a car crash.

This painting, “The Red Smile,” is by Brooklyn-born Alex Katz.

Visitors scrutinize Brooklyn-born George Tooker’s 1950 painting “The Subway” (r.) and “Terror in Brooklyn” (l.) by Louis Guglielmi.

A detail from “The Subway” by George Tooker.

A detail from “Terror in Brooklyn” by Louis Guglielmi.

This is a detail from “A Means to an End … A Shadow Drama in Five Acts” by Kara Walker, who owns a house in Wallabout. Her gigantic sculpture “The Sugar Sphinx,” which was made of sugar, was displayed in Williamsburg’s former Domino sugar factory last year.

Does this look familiar? “The Brooklyn Bridge: Variations on an Old Theme,” is a 1939 painting by Joseph Stella, who also has a work depicting Luna Park in this exhibition.