Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York. The world's pre-eminent collection of visual arts from the late 19th century to the present day. It was founded in 1929 by a group of seven well-connected art lovers, among whom were Lillie P. Bliss and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. In May 1929 they formed a committee, and in summer of the same year they appointed a director ( Alfred H. Barr—an inspired choice), rented premises in the loft of an office building on Fifth Avenue, and issued a brochure entitled A New Art Museum, which set out some of their aims. Their immediate purpose was to hold ‘some twenty exhibitions during the next two years', but the ultimate objective was ‘to acquire, from time to time, either by gift or purchase, the best modern works of art … It is not unreasonable to suppose that within ten years New York, with its vast wealth, its already magnificent private collections and its enthusiastic but not yet organized interest in modern art, could achieve perhaps the greatest museum of modern art in the world.’ Barr was even more ambitious in his plans (and amazingly clear-sighted in the way he envisioned the future broad scope of the collection); he proposed that ‘In time the Museum would probably expand beyond the narrow limits of painting and sculpture in order to include departments devoted to drawings, prints, and photography, typography, the arts of design in commerce and industry, architecture (a collection of projets and maquettes), stage designing, furniture and the decorative arts. Not the least important collection might be the filmotek, a library of films.’

In October 1929 the seven founders held their first formal meeting as trustees; the industrialist A. Conger Goodyear (1877–1964) was elected president, Miss Bliss was vicepresident, and Mrs Rockefeller was treasurer. Later in the same month, seven more trustees were elected, including Duncan Phillips. The museum's first exhibition, ‘Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, Van Gogh', opened on 8 November, accompanied by a catalogue illustrating almost all of the 101 works on show. The exhibition was a great success, attended by 47,000 people in its four-week run, with 5,400 packing the galleries on the last day (the landlord of the building threatened to cancel the lease because the crowds were clogging the elevators). By the end of the year the Museum had also bought its first acquisitions—eight prints and a drawing—and Goodyear had presented the first sculpture to enter the collection, a nude torso by Maillol. The first painting acquired by the museum was Hopper's House by the Railroad (1925), given by Stephen C. Clark, one of the trustees, early in 1930. A trickle of other gifts followed, but the core of the permanent collection was established by Lillie Bliss's bequest at her death in 1931. (The phrase ‘permanent collection’ was abandoned in 1941 in favour of ‘museum collection', as it was the policy to sell works that were regarded as surplus in order to raise funds.)

In 1932 the museum moved to larger premises at 11 West 53rd Street. The collection was at this time growing slowly during the Depression years, but in 1935 it was given its first purchase fund by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, one of her many benefactions to the museum. In 1937 it moved temporarily to the Rockefeller Center to allow the construction of a new building at the site in West 53rd Street (this remains the museum's home, but it has since expanded enormously in size in various stages). In 1939 the new premises opened and the museum celebrated its 10th anniversary with an exhibition entitled ‘Art in Our Time', in which all its departments were represented: Painting and Sculpture, Drawings and Prints, Architecture, Industrial Design, Posters, Film, and Photography. Among the exhibits was Picasso's recently acquired Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, now the most famous work in the collection. The catalogue of the exhibition recorded that in its first decade the museum had held 112 exhibitions attended by about one-and-a-half million people. By this time the balance of its collections and activities had moved strongly from 19th-century to 20th-century art: in the words of the ‘Art in our Time’ catalogue, ‘our aim has been to present to the public the living art of our own time and its sources'.

In 1943 the museum announced that Barr had resigned as director ‘to devote his full time to writing the works on modern art which he has had in preparation and which heavy directorial duties have made it impossible for him to undertake'; however, he continued to work at the museum until his retirement in 1967, first as director of research and then from 1947 as director of museum collections (the varied titles are somewhat confusing; there was no overall director again until 1949, the Museum being run in the intervening period by a committee, and Barr remained MOMA's dominant presence). Another distinguished scholar of modern art, James Thrall Soby, was briefly director of the department of painting and sculpture, 1943–5. In 1944 he wrote an article for Museum News explaining MOMA's acquisitions policy: ‘In recent years the Museum has sometimes been berated for not buying more painting and sculpture by American abstract and Expressionist artists [members of American Abstract Artists had in fact picketed the museum in 1940] … But it should be remembered that the Museum does not exist for the direct benefit and patronage of artists. We do not consider it our job to force contemporary art in one direction or another through propaganda or patronage, much as enthusiasts for a particular dogma would like to have us do so. For in the final analysis it is not our job to lead artists, but to follow them—at a close yet respectful distance.’ In spite of such robust words of defence, as MOMA grew in size and prestige, its power to make reputations was generally acknowledged. Alexander Calder, for example, wrote in 1966 that ‘I have long felt that whatever my success has been’ was ‘greatly as a result of the show I had at MOMA in 1943'.

In 1947 MOMA came to an arrangement with the Metropolitan Museum, New York, whereby it was to sell to the Metropolitan ‘paintings and sculptures which the two museums agree have passed from the category of modern to that of “classic”', with the proceeds being used to buy new works for MOMA. In 1953, however, the board of trustees announced a change of policy, described by Barr as follows: ‘A permanent nucleus of “masterworks” was to be selected under the supervision of the Board. In accordance with this new policy, the 1947 agreement with the Metropolitan Museum was terminated; the Museum of Modern Art would no longer sell … its “classical” paintings in order to purchase more “modern” works. Instead it would permanently place on view masterpieces of the modern movement beginning with the latter half of the nineteenth century.’

In 1953 MOMA added the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, designed by the celebrated architect Philip Johnson (1906– ), who had two periods in charge of the museum's Department of Architecture and has also been a generous benefactor of works of art from his own collection. Johnson remodelled the sculpture garden in 1964 when he added a new east wing to the museum. In 1966 MOMA was again greatly enlarged when it took over the adjacent premises formerly occupied by the Whitney Museum. When Alfred Barr retired the following year, MOMA had become such a huge institution that it employed more than 500 people. In 1976 it announced plans for a new west wing. To help finance this it sold the air rights over the museum to a property developer, who built an apartment block—Museum Tower—over the new wing, which was opened in 1984. In 1996 MOMA bought adjacent land for further expansion.

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART. Through exhibitions, educational programs, publications, and ever-expanding permanent collections, the Museum of Modern Art, a nonprofit educational institution popularly known as MoMA, has been a leading shaper and challenger of American public taste. MoMA was the brainchild of Lillie P. Bliss, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and Mary Quinn Sullivan, who in May 1929 asked A. Conger Goodyear, the museum's first president, to chair a committee to organize a museum dedicated to contemporary art and its immediate predecessors. They appointed Alfred H. Barr Jr. director in August, and MoMA opened with its first loan exhibition on 8 November 1929. Barr, who retired as director of collections in 1967, was MoMA's intellectual guiding light.

MoMA includes six collecting departments: Painting and Sculpture, Architecture and Design (est. 1932 as the Architecture Department), Film and Media (est. 1935 as the Film Library), Photography (est. 1940), Prints and Illustrated Books (est. 1969), and Drawings (est. 1971). The Architecture and Design, Film, and Photography departments were the first of their kind in a museum. Several departments are among the world's strongest in depth and quality. Among MoMA's iconic paintings are Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night (1889), Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory (1931). Groundbreaking exhibitions organized by MoMA have included Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism (1936), The Family of Man (1955), and "Primitivism" in 20th Century Art (1984). Educational programs have included tours, lectures, lending programs, the publication of guides and exhibition catalogs, and, during World War II, a number of war programs. Funding comes primarily through admission and membership fees, sales of services and publications, and contributions. MoMA has been particularly well endowed with donations of art from trustees and supporters, beginning with Bliss and Rockefeller.

Since 1932, MoMA's address has been 11 West Fifty-third Street in New York City, though it has expanded enormously by repeatedly acquiring adjacent property and undergoing major building projects completed in 1939, 1964, 1984, and (anticipated) 2005.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kantor, Sybil Gordon. Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and the Intellectual Origins of the Museum of Modern Art. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001.

Lynes, Russell. Good Old Modern: An Intimate Portrait of the Museum of Modern Art. New York: Atheneum, 1973.

Museum of Modern Art. The History and the Collection. New York: Abrams and the Museum of Modern Art, 1984.

CraigBunch

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City, established and incorporated in 1929. It is privately supported. Alfred H. Barr , Jr., was its first director. Operating at first in rented galleries, the museum specialized in loan shows of contemporary European and American art. A start toward its permanent collection was made with the Lillie P. Bliss bequest, which included nine Cézannes and the Daumier Washerwoman. Its present collection, which includes more than 150,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, graphics, photographs, videos, architectural drawings and models, and design objects, represents one of the finest groups of modern and contemporary art in the world. MoMA's merger (2000) with P.S. 1, a contemporary art space in Long Island City, Queens, gave the museum a greater connection to avant-garde art. MoMA also has outstanding departments of photography and architecture, an extensive reference library and archives, and a large film library.

A permanent building, boxy and in the International Style , designed by Philip L. Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone was erected in midtown Manhattan in 1939. A new wing designed by Philip Johnson was added in 1964, and the building was renovated and expanded again in 1984 by Cesar Pelli and Associates, principally with the addition of a 52-story residential tower. MoMA Manhattan quarters were subsequently enlarged and redesigned (2002–4) by the Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi in a highly refined modernist style. Among the museum's new features are a central atrium, skylit and soaring to 110 ft (33.5 m), expanded galleries and office space, an enlarged sculpture garden, and an eight-story education and research building completed in 2006. In preparation for this work the collection was moved to Long Island City in 2002 and housed in a former factory building, dubbed MoMA QNS, that had been reconfigured by the architect Michael Maltzan. The Queens space is now used as a storage and study facility.

Bibliography: See catalog of paintings in the permanent collection by H. Frank (1973); R. Lynes, Good Old Modern: An Intimate Portrait of the Museum of Modern Art (1973); S. Hunter, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1984, repr. 1997); G. D. Lowry, MOMA Highlights: 325 Works from The Museum of Modern Art (2002); J. Elderfield, ed., Modern Painting and Sculpture: 1880 to the Present from The Museum of Modern Art (2004).

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. The world's pre-eminent collection of art from the late 19th century to the present day, privately founded in 1929 by a group of collectors. Among them were Lillie P. Bliss (1864–1931) and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (1874–1948), who became two of the museum's greatest benefactors. It operated first in rented premises, holding loan shows, but the nucleus of a permanent collection was established with the bequest of Miss Bliss at her death in 1931. The present building, in 53rd Street, was opened in 1939 and was inaugurated with a large exhibition entitled ‘Art in our Time’, celebrating the museum's tenth anniversary. The catalogue of the exhibition recorded that in its first decade the museum had held 112 exhibitions attended by about 1.5 million people. By this time the balance of its collections and activities had moved strongly from 19th-century to 20th-century art: in the words of the ‘Art in our Time’ catalogue, ‘our aim has been to present to the public the living art of our own time and its sources’. Subsequently the museum has expanded greatly in size in various stages (in 1966 it took over the adjacent premises when the Whitney Museum moved from them to its new home). Apart from its unrivalled holdings of painting, sculpture, and the graphic arts, it has collections of photographs, films, and architectural documentation, and a large library. Through its permanent collections, exhibitions, and many other activities it exercises a strong influence both on taste and on artistic production. The numerous publications it has produced include some of the standard texts on modern art, several of them written by Alfred H. Barr Jr., the first director of the museum.

Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. Institution founded in Oxford in 1966 by a group of art lovers under the chairmanship of Trevor Green, an architect. Initially they hoped to create a museum with a permanent collection of post-1945 art, but this proved financially unfeasible, so they decided instead to establish a home for a programme of changing exhibitions. The original premises were in King Edward Street, and in 1970 the museum moved to its present home—part of a 19th-century storehouse in Pembroke Street that was formerly used as a brewery. A large extension was completed in 1981. The museum mounts a wide range of exhibitions (which often tour in Britain and abroad) and also hosts lectures and seminars. Many of the exhibitions have dealt with art that is generally little known in Britain, particularly from Eastern European countries, and their catalogues have made significant contributions to scholarship. The museum has built up a research library and archive based on its activities, and has a particularly important Rodchenko collection, assembled for an exhibition of his work in 1979 (much of the material was donated by the artist's family in Moscow). The impressive contributions to Russian studies reflect the fact that the director of the museum for most of its history, David Elliott (1949– ), is a noted scholar of Russian art. He succeeded Nicholas Serota (see TATE GALLERY) as director in 1976 and left to become director of the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, in 1996.

Museum of Modern Art, New York. The world's pre-eminent collection of art from the late 19th century to the present day, privately founded in 1929 by a group of collectors. It operated first in rented premises, holding loan shows, but the nucleus of a permanent collection was established with the bequest of Lillie P. Bliss (one of the founders), who died in 1931. The present building, in 53rd Street, was opened in 1939 and it has subsequently expanded greatly in size in various stages (in 1966 it took over the adjacent premises when the Whitney Museum moved from them to its new home). Apart from its unrivalled holdings of painting, sculpture, and the graphic arts, the museum has collections of photographs, films, and architectural documentation, and a large library. Through its permanent collections, exhibitions, and many other activities it exercises a strong influence both on taste and on artistic production. The many publications it has produced include some of the standard texts on modern art, several of them written by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the first director of the museum.

Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco. See SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART.

Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm. See MODERNA MUSEET.