Rubell Museum

• Name — Rubell Museum • Former Name — Rubell Family Collection • Location — Miami, Florida, and Washington, D.C. • Type — Art museum • Collections — Contemporary art • Collection Size — 7400 • Founder — Don and Mera Rubell • Director — Juan Roselione-Valadez • Architect — Selldorf Architects (Miami) Beyer Blinder Belle (Washington, D.C.) • Website — rubellmuseum.org

Don and Mera Rubell married in 1964 and began collecting art while living in New York City by setting aside money each month from Mera's salary as a teacher while Don attended medical school. Don's brother Steve Rubell, a co-owner of the nightclub Studio 54, died in 1989 leaving the couple a significant inheritance that expanded their ability to purchase and showcase art. They continued to finance their art collection with investments in hotels in South Florida.

• Illustration — The Rubell Family Collection in its former space in Wynwood, in 2009 In 1993, the Rubells opened their private collection to the public as the Rubell Family Collection in a building formerly used by the Drug Enforcement Administration in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami. The collection's presence in the neighborhood helped spur further development, with other private collections, galleries, and art-focused businesses moving to the area in the following years; the Rubell family was also successful in helping lobby Art Basel to host an edition of the art fair in the Miami area, which would eventually become Art Basel Miami Beach. The original building was renovated in 2004 by Miami architect Allan Shulman. Juan Roselione-Valadez was appointed director of the Miami museum in 2010.

In 2019, the collection relocated from the Wynwood neighborhood to a new site in the Allapattah neighborhood and was renamed the Rubell Museum. The new facility consists of six former industrial buildings redesigned by Selldorf Architects and features 40 galleries with 100,000 square feet of gallery space, a library, a restaurant, a performance space, and a bookstore. The facility was originally purchased by the museum as a new storage location, but the size of the site inspired museum leadership to utilize it for a larger, more public-focused museum facility. The expansion was funded by the sale of the collection's previous space in Wynwood; developers purchased the former Rubell property (along with several other adjoining properties) for a reported $53 million in 2022.

• Illustration — The Rubell Museum DC in 2026 In 2022, the Rubell announced the opening of a second museum location inside the renovated Randall Junior High School building in the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood of Washington, D.C., less than one mile directly south of the National Mall. The Rubells originally purchased the historic building in 2010 from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, later hiring Beyer Blinder Belle to refurbish and renovate the school building for the new museum, and partnering with Lowe to construct a 492-unit apartment building behind the museum. Caitlin Berry, former director of Marymount University's Cody Gallery of Art, was named director of the D.C. museum in August 2022. The second location, which is free to residents of Washington, opened in October 2022 and features 32,000 square feet of gallery space and a bookstore. Berry left the D.C. museum in early 2024. Roselione-Valadez told The Washington Post that the museum had no immediate plans to rehire for the D.C. director position but that the institution was committed to staying in Washington long-term, saying "We plan on being there for at least 100 years."

The Rubell has staged dozens of exhibitions, many of which have gone on to travel to venues across the country. In 2011 the Rubell's exhibition 30 Americans began touring, stopping first at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh. 30 Americans, a show focused on art by African-American artists from the museum's collection, has since toured to over a dozen museums and remained on tour as of 2022. The opening exhibition in the Rubell's D.C. museum, What's Going On (2022), paid homage to Marvin Gaye, who had attended the former school that the museum is located in.