Barr, Alfred H.

Barr, Alfred H. (1902–1981). American art historian and administrator who played an enormously important role in establishing an intellectual framework for the study and appreciation of modern art; his obituary in the International Herald Tribune described him as ‘possibly the most innovative and influential museum man of the 20th century'. He was born in Detroit, the son of a Presbyterian minister, and studied art and archaeology at Princeton University, graduating in 1922 and taking an MA degree the following year (his thesis was on Piero di Cosimo). After several months travelling in Europe, he returned to the USA and taught art history successively at Vassar College (1923–4), Harvard University (1924–5), Princeton University (1925–6), and Wellesley College (1926–7); the rapid changes of job were part of a career plan to gain wide experience. At Vassar he mounted an exhibition of Kandinsky's work, and at Wellesley he taught the first course at an American college devoted solely to 20th-century art, which by this time had become his greatest interest. In 1929 he was appointed director of the newly-founded Museum of Modern Art, New York, and over the next four decades he was largely responsible for building the museum's collections and reputation (he resigned as director in 1943 so he could devote more time to writing, but he continued as director of research, and retired in 1967 with the title of director of museum collections). After his retirement he compiled a massive catalogue of all the paintings and sculptures that were in the permanent collection at the end of his 38 years of service; this was published in 1977 as Painting and Sculpture in the Museum of Modern Art 1929–1967, containing entries for 2,622 works by 999 artists, of which about two-thirds are illustrated. In the foreword to this volume, Richard E. Oldenburg, the director of the Museum at that time, wrote of Barr: ‘He believed that a museum collection should not be built up on the same principle as a private one, subject only to personal taste, but should rather be catholic—and systematically seek to be so. If this no longer seems a novel idea, then it is to Mr Barr's credit that his concept of a modern museum is now so widely accepted.’ An important aspect of his catholic and systematic approach was that he widened the traditional concept of the art museum to embrace visual arts as a whole, including architecture, industrial design, and motion pictures

Barr organized more than 100 exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, including such famous shows as ‘Cubism and Abstract Art’ and ‘Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism’ (both 1936), and he did much to create the modern idea of an art exhibition, through such means as special lighting, expository wall captions, and scholarly, fully illustrated catalogues. He wrote numerous books and catalogues himself, setting impressive standards of scholarship but presenting his findings in an accessible style. His two most famous books are probably Picasso: Fifty Years of his Art (1946) and Matisse: His Art and his Public (1951). These have stood the test of time extremely well and are still considered standard works; indeed, in 1985 John Golding described the Matisse book as ‘in many respects still the most satisfactory monograph on any major twentieth-century artist'. In spite of the praise he received for his work, Barr was a controversial figure. He was attacked by sectarians within the world of modern art as well as by conservatives, and some critics thought that the museum he created had too powerful an influence in shaping—rather than reflecting—the course of modern art; in 1960, for example, John Canaday described Barr in the New York Times as ‘the most powerful tastemaker in American art today and probably in the world'. Richard E. Oldenburg writes that Barr ‘replied that he was a “reluctant” tastemaker, for he did not believe that it was a museum's primary task to discover the new, but to move at a discreet distance behind developing art, not trying to create movements or reputations but putting things together as their contours begin to clarify'.

In addition to his work at the Museum of Modern Art, Barr served on the advisory boards of other museums and the juries of art competitions. After the Second World War he won a stream of awards from the USA and elsewhere, including being made a member of the Legion of Honour by France. In a profile in Current Biography (1961) he was described as ‘slender, bespectacled, and scholarly … fragile in appearance but boundless in energy'.