Artist Dana Barnes Lists Synagogue-Turned-Studio for US$10.95 Million

Artist Dana Barnes has put her working studio on the market in New York. The building, a former synagogue on Manhattan's Lower East Side, is listed at US$10.95 million. The sale was reported by The New York Times on 11 September 2026.

That address matters. The Lower East Side, the neighbourhood just south of the East Village in Manhattan, has long mixed tenements, places of worship and artists' lofts. A studio building there is both a workplace and a piece of city property.

The building's past is part of the story. It began life as a synagogue, a Jewish house of prayer and assembly, before conversion into an art studio. That kind of change is familiar in older New York religious buildings, where high ceilings and open halls suit making large work.

The figure attached is a list price, the amount the seller is asking, not the final sale price. Buyers can offer above or below it. The final number only becomes public if and when a deal closes.

Barnes is the seller and the occupant. For an artist, a studio building is not just storage. It holds equipment, work in progress and years of routine. Letting it go means shifting daily life as well as ownership.

What makes this stand out is the double life of the place. Worshippers once gathered there. Now it is measured in daylight, floor strength and room to build. Few workplaces carry that shift so plainly.

A sale like this usually moves in stages. First the public listing. Then viewings, offers and negotiation. In New York, a buyer also pays attention to zoning, a local rule that decides how a building can be used, and to running costs.

The report describes the property as back on the market. That phrase means it has been offered for sale before. The report does not give a reason for the return or for the decision to sell.

For fans, this means a rare look at where the work gets made. Studio sales seldom get the same attention as exhibitions. Yet they decide where an artist goes next.

A buyer will get more than walls and a roof. They will get a building shaped by two different uses, prayer and painting. That history stays with the address, whoever signs next.

Barnes has not publicly commented beyond the listing, as reported. Any update will come with a contract and a closing price.