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The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an
art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. Although primarily con ...
located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on
53rd Street 53rd Street is a midtown cross street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, that runs adjacent to buildings such as the Citigroup building. It is 1.83 miles (2.94 km) long. The street runs westbound from Sutton Place across ...
between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting
modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tra ...
, and is often identified as one of the
largest Large means of great size. Large may also refer to: Mathematics * Arbitrarily large, a phrase in mathematics * Large cardinal, a property of certain transfinite numbers * Large category, a category with a proper class of objects and morphisms (or ...
and most influential museums of modern art in the world. MoMA's collection offers an overview of modern and
contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic c ...
, including works of
architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...
and design, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography,
prints In molecular biology, the PRINTS database is a collection of so-called "fingerprints": it provides both a detailed annotation resource for protein families, and a diagnostic tool for newly determined sequences. A fingerprint is a group of conserved ...
, illustrated and
artist's book Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are work of art, works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects. Overview Artists' books hav ...
s, film, and
electronic media Electronic media are media that use electronics or electromechanical means for the audience to access the content. This is in contrast to static media (mainly print media), which today are most often created digitally, but do not require el ...
. The MoMA Library includes about 300,000 books and exhibition catalogs, more than 1,000 periodical titles, and more than 40,000 files of ephemera about individual artists and groups. The archives hold primary source material related to the history of modern and
contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic c ...
. It attracted 1,160,686 visitors in 2021, an increase of 64% from 2020. It ranked 15th on the list of most visited art museums in the world in 2021.'' The Art Newspaper'' annual museum visitor survey, published March 31, 2021


History


Heckscher and other buildings (1929–1939)

The idea for the Museum of Modern Art was developed in 1929 primarily by
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Abigail Greene Aldrich Rockefeller (October 26, 1874 – April 5, 1948) was an American socialite and philanthropist. She was a prominent member of the Rockefeller family through her marriage to financier and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller ...
(wife of
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (January 29, 1874 – May 11, 1960) was an American financier and philanthropist, and the only son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He was involved in the development of the vast office complex in M ...
) and two of her friends, Lillie P. Bliss and
Mary Quinn Sullivan Mary Quinn Sullivan (November 24, 1877 – December 5, 1939), born Mary Josephine Quinn, was a pioneering collector of European and American modern and contemporary art and gallerist, and a founding trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, which opened ...
. They became known variously as "the Ladies" or "the adamantine ladies". They rented modest quarters for the new museum in the Heckscher Building at 730 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and it opened to the public on November 7, 1929, nine days after the Wall Street Crash. Abby Rockefeller had invited A. Conger Goodyear, the former president of the board of trustees of the Albright Art Gallery in
Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Southe ...
, to become president of the new museum. Abby became treasurer. At the time, it was America's premier museum devoted exclusively to modern art, and the first of its kind in Manhattan to exhibit European modernism. One of Rockefeller's early recruits for the museum staff was the noted
Japanese-American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...
photographer Soichi Sunami (at that time best known for his portraits of modern dance pioneer
Martha Graham Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer and choreographer. Her style, the Graham technique, reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide. Graham danced and taught for over seventy years. She w ...
), who served the museum as its official
documentary photographer Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. It is typically undertaken as professional pho ...
from 1930 until 1968. Goodyear enlisted
Paul J. Sachs Paul Joseph Sachs (November 24, 1878 – February 18, 1965) was an American investor, businessman and museum director. Sachs served as associate director of the Fogg Art Museum and as a partner in the financial firm Goldman Sachs. He is recogniz ...
and
Frank Crowninshield Francis Welch Crowninshield (June 24, 1872 – December 28, 1947), better known as Frank or Crownie (''informal''), was an American journalist and art and theater critic best known for developing and editing the magazine '' Vanity Fair'' for 21 ...
to join him as founding trustees. Sachs, the associate director and curator of prints and drawings at the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, was referred to in those days as a "collector of curators". Goodyear asked him to recommend a director, and Sachs suggested
Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Alfred Hamilton Barr Jr. (January 28, 1902 – August 15, 1981) was an American art historian and the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. From that position, he was one of the most influential forces in the development of ...
, a promising young protégé. Under Barr's guidance, the museum's holdings quickly expanded from an initial gift of eight prints and one drawing. Its first successful loan exhibition was in November 1929, displaying paintings by Van Gogh,
Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fro ...
, Cézanne, and
Seurat Georges Pierre Seurat ( , , ; 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough sur ...
. First housed in six rooms of galleries and offices on the 12th floor of Manhattan's Heckscher Building, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, the museum moved into three more temporary locations within the next 10 years. Abby Rockefeller's husband, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was adamantly opposed to the museum (as well as to modern art itself) and refused to release funds for the venture, which had to be obtained from other sources and resulted in the frequent shifts of location. Nevertheless, he eventually donated the land for the current site of the museum, plus other gifts over time, and thus became in effect one of its greatest benefactors. During that time, the museum initiated many more exhibitions of noted artists, such as the lone
Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inclu ...
exhibition on November 4, 1935. Containing an unprecedented 66 oils and 50 drawings from the Netherlands, as well as poignant excerpts from the artist's letters, it was a major public success due to Barr's arrangement of the exhibit, and became "a precursor to the hold van Gogh has to this day on the contemporary imagination".


53rd Street (1939–present)


1930s to 1950s

The museum also gained international prominence with the hugely successful and now famous Picasso retrospective of 1939–40, held in conjunction with the
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mil ...
. In its range of presented works, it represented a significant reinterpretation of Picasso for future art scholars and historians. This was wholly masterminded by Barr, a Picasso enthusiast, and the exhibition lionized Picasso as the greatest artist of the time, setting the model for all the museum's retrospectives that were to follow. ''
Boy Leading a Horse ''Jeune garçon au cheval'' (English: ''Boy Leading a Horse'') is an oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso. The painting is housed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was painted in Picasso's Rose Period from 1905 to 1906, when he was ...
'' was briefly contested over ownership with the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
. In 1941, MoMA hosted the ground-breaking exhibition, " Indian Art of the United States" (curated by
Frederic Huntington Douglas Frederic Huntington Douglas (born October 29, 1897 in Evergreen, Colorado; died April 23, 1956) also known as Eric Douglas. "was one of the first scholars to recognize the artistic achievements of American Indians as well as the arts of Africa an ...
and
Rene d'Harnoncourt René d'Harnoncourt (May 17, 1901 – August 13, 1968) was an Austrian-born American art curator. He was Director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from 1949 to 1967. Background Of Austrian, Czech, and French descent, Count Rene d'Harnoncou ...
), that changed the way Native American arts were viewed by the public and exhibited in art museums. Abby Rockefeller's son
Nelson Nelson may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey * ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers * ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...
was selected by the board of trustees to become its president, in 1939, at the age of 30; he was a flamboyant leader and became the prime instigator and funding source of MoMA's publicity, acquisitions, and subsequent expansion into new headquarters on 53rd Street. His brother, David Rockefeller, also joined the museum's board of trustees, in 1948, and took over the presidency, when Nelson was elected governor of New York, in 1958. David Rockefeller subsequently employed noted architect Philip Johnson to redesign the museum garden, and named it in honor of his mother, the
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden is an outdoor courtyard at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, New York City. Designed by notable architect Philip Johnson, the courtyard was conceived at the same time as Johnson's West Wing annex ...
. The Rockefeller family and he have retained a close association with the museum throughout its history, with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund funding the institution since 1947. Both David Rockefeller, Jr. and Sharon Percy Rockefeller (wife of former senator
Jay Rockefeller John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV (born June 18, 1937) is a retired American politician who served as a United States senator from West Virginia (1985–2015). He was first elected to the Senate in 1984, while in office as governor of West Virgi ...
) sit on the board of trustees. After the Rockefeller Guest House at 242 East 52nd Street was completed in 1950, some MoMA functions were held in the house until 1964. In 1937, MoMA had shifted to offices and basement galleries in the Time-Life Building in Rockefeller Center. Its permanent and current home, now renovated, designed in the International Style by the modernist architects Philip L. Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone, opened to the public on May 10, 1939, attended by an illustrious company of 6,000 people, and with an opening address via radio from the White House by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As th ...
.


1958 fire

On April 15, 1958, a fire on the second floor destroyed an Monet ''Water Lilies'' painting (the current Monet ''Water Lilies'' was acquired shortly after the fire as a replacement). The fire started when workmen installing air conditioning were smoking near paint cans, sawdust, and a canvas drop cloth. One worker was killed in the fire and several firefighters were treated for smoke inhalation. Most of the paintings on the floor had been moved for the construction, although large paintings including the Monet were left. Art work on the third and fourth floors were evacuated to the Whitney Museum of American Art, which abutted it on the 54th Street side. Among the paintings that were moved was ''
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte ''A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte'' (french: Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte) was painted from 1884 to 1886 and is Georges Seurat's most famous work. A leading example of pointillist technique, executed o ...
'', which had been on loan by the
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mil ...
. Visitors and employees above the fire were evacuated to the roof and then jumped to the roof of an adjoining townhouse.


1960–1982

In 1969, the MoMA was at the center of a controversy over its decision to withdraw funding from the iconic antiwar poster ''
And babies ''And babies'' (December 26, 1969) is an iconic anti-Vietnam War poster. It is a famous example of "propaganda art" from the Vietnam War, The poster is also discussed in ''Propaganda Prints: A History of Art in the Service of Social and Political ...
''. In 1969, the Art Workers Coalition, a group of New York City artists who opposed the Vietnam War, in collaboration with Museum of Modern Art members Arthur Drexler and Elizabeth Shaw, created an iconic protest poster called ''And babies''. The poster uses an image by photojournalist
Ronald L. Haeberle Ronald L. Haeberle (born circa 1940) is a former United States Army photographer best known for the photographs he took of the My Lai Massacre on March 16, 1968. The monochrome photographs he took were made using an Army camera and were either s ...
and references the My Lai Massacre. The MoMA had promised to fund and circulate the poster, but after seeing the 2-by-3-foot poster, MoMA pulled financing for the project at the last minute. MoMA's board of trustees included Nelson Rockefeller and
William S. Paley William Samuel Paley (September 28, 1901 – October 26, 1990) was an American businessman, primarily involved in the media, and best known as the chief executive who built the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) from a small radio network into o ...
(head of CBS), who reportedly "hit the ceiling" on seeing the proofs of the poster. The poster was included shortly thereafter in MoMA's ''Information'' exhibition of July 2 to September 20, 1970, curated by Kynaston McShine. In 1971, after protests outside the museum meant to spur inclusion of African Americans Richard Hunt was the first African American sculptor to have a major solo retrospective at the Museum. Another controversy involved Pablo Picasso's painting ''
Boy Leading a Horse ''Jeune garçon au cheval'' (English: ''Boy Leading a Horse'') is an oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso. The painting is housed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was painted in Picasso's Rose Period from 1905 to 1906, when he was ...
'' (1905–06), donated to MoMA by William S. Paley in 1964. The status of the work as being sold under duress by its German Jewish owners in the 1930s was in dispute. The descendants of the original owners sued MoMA and the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
, which has another Picasso painting, ''Le Moulin de la Galette'' (1900), once owned by the same family, for return of the works. Both museums reached a confidential settlement with the descendants before the case went to trial and retained their respective paintings. Both museums had claimed from the outset to be the proper owners of these paintings, and that the claims were illegitimate. In a joint statement, the two museums wrote: "we settled simply to avoid the costs of prolonged litigation, and to ensure the public continues to have access to these important paintings."


1980–1999

In 1983, the museum more than doubled its gallery, increased the curatorial department by 30%, and added an auditorium, two restaurants, and a bookstore in conjunction with the construction of the 56-story Museum Tower adjoining the museum. In 1997, the museum undertook a major renovation and expansion designed by Japanese architect
Yoshio Taniguchi Yoshio Taniguchi (谷口 吉生, ''Taniguchi Yoshio''; born 1937) is a Japanese architect best known for his redesign of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, which was reopened November 20, 2004. Critics have emphasized Taniguchi's fusion ...
with Kohn Pedersen Fox. The project, including an increase in MoMA's endowment to cover operating expenses, cost $858 million in total. The project nearly doubled the space for MoMA's exhibitions and programs, and features of space. The Peggy and David Rockefeller Building on the western portion of the site houses the main exhibition galleries, and The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building provides space for classrooms, auditoriums, teacher-training workshops, and the museum's expanded library and archives. These two buildings frame the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, which was enlarged from its original configuration.


21st century

The museum was closed for two years in connection with the renovation and moved its public-facing operations to a temporary facility called MoMA QNS in Long Island City, Queens. When MoMA reopened in 2004, the renovation was controversial. Some critics thought that Taniguchi's design was a fine example of contemporary architecture, while many others were displeased with aspects of the design, such as the flow of the space. In 2005, the museum sold land that it owned west of its existing building to Hines, a Texas real estate developer, under an agreement that reserved space on the lower levels of the building Hines planned to construct there for a MoMA expansion. In 2011, MoMA acquired an adjacent building constructed and occupied by the
American Folk Art Museum The American Folk Art Museum is an art museum in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, at 2, Lincoln Square, Columbus Avenue at 66th Street. It is the premier institution devoted to the aesthetic appreciation of folk art and creative expressions of ...
on West 53rd Street. The building was a well-regarded structure designed by
Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (also known as Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects , Partners) are a husband-and-wife architectural firm founded in 1986, based in New York. Williams and Tsien began working together in 1977. Their studio focu ...
and was sold in connection with a financial restructuring of the Folk Art Museum. When MoMA announced that it would demolish the building in connection with its expansion, outcry and considerable discussion arose about the issue, but the museum ultimately proceeded with its original plans. The Hines building, designed by Jean Nouvel and called
53W53 53 West 53 (also known as 53W53 and formerly known as Tower Verre) is a supertall skyscraper at 53 West 53rd Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, adjacent to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). It was developed by the rea ...
, received construction approval in 2014. Around the time of the Hines' construction approval, MoMA unveiled its expansion plans, which encompass space in 53W53, as well as construction on the former site of the American Folk Art Museum. The expansion plan was developed by the architecture firm
Diller Scofidio + Renfro Diller has several uses including: People with the surname *Barry Diller (b. 1942), American businessman *Burgoyne Diller (1906–1965), American abstract painter *Dwight Diller (b. 1946), American musician *Phyllis Diller (1917–2012), America ...
in collaboration with Gensler. The first phase of construction began in 2014. In June 2017, patrons and the public were welcomed into MoMA to see the completion of the first phase of the $450 million expansion to the museum.
Spread over three floors of the art mecca off Fifth Avenue are 15,000 square-feet (about 1,400 m2) of reconfigured galleries, a new, second gift shop, a redesigned cafe and espresso bar, and facing the sculpture garden, two lounges graced with black marble quarried in France.
The museum expansion project increased the publicly accessibly space by 25% compared to when the Tanaguchi building was completed in 2004. The expansion allowed for even more of the museum's collection of nearly 200,000 works to be displayed. The new spaces also allow visitors to enjoy a relaxing sit-down in one of the two new lounges, or even have a fully catered meal. The two new lounges include "The Marlene Hess and James D. Zirin Lounge" and "The Daniel and Jane Och Lounge". The goal of this renovation is to help expand the collection and display of work by women, Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and other marginalized communities. In connection with the renovation, MoMA shifted its approach to presenting its holdings, moving away from separating the collection by disciplines such as painting, design, and works on paper toward an integrated chronological presentation that encompasses all areas of the collection. The Museum of Modern Art closed for another round of major renovations from June to October 2019. Upon reopening on October 21, 2019, MoMA added of gallery space, and its total floor area was . The expansion and refurbishment was overseen by the architectural firm of
Diller Scofidio + Renfro Diller has several uses including: People with the surname *Barry Diller (b. 1942), American businessman *Burgoyne Diller (1906–1965), American abstract painter *Dwight Diller (b. 1946), American musician *Phyllis Diller (1917–2012), America ...
. The institution began offering free online classes in April 2014.


Exhibition houses

The MoMA occasionally has sponsored and hosted temporary exhibition houses, which have reflected seminal ideas in architectural history. * 1949: exhibition house by
Marcel Breuer Marcel Lajos Breuer ( ; 21 May 1902 – 1 July 1981), was a Hungarian-born modernist architect and furniture designer. At the Bauhaus he designed the Wassily Chair and the Cesca Chair, which ''The New York Times'' have called some of the most im ...
* 1950: exhibition house by
Gregory Ain Gregory Samuel Ain (March 28, 1908 – January 9, 1988) was an American architect active in the mid-20th century. Working primarily in the Los Angeles area, Ain is best known for bringing elements of modern architecture to lower- and medium ...
* 1955: Japanese Exhibition House by Junzo Yoshimura, reinstalled in Philadelphia, PA in 1957–58 and known now as Shofuso Japanese House and Garden * 2008: Prefabricated houses planned by: ** Kieran Timberlake Architects ** Lawrence Sass ** System Architects: Jeremy Edmiston and Douglas Gauthier ** Leo Kaufmann Architects ** Richard Horden


Artworks

The MoMA is organized around six Curatorial Departments: Architecture and Design, Drawings and Prints, Film, Media and Performance, Painting and Sculpture, and Photography. Considered by many to have the best collection of modern Western masterpieces in the world, the MoMA's holdings include more than 150,000 individual pieces in addition to roughly 22,000 films and 4 million film stills. (Access to the collection of film stills ended in 2002, and the collection is stored in a vault in Hamlin, Pennsylvania.). The collection houses such important and familiar works as the following: * Francis Bacon, ''
Painting (1946) ''Painting 1946'', also known as ''Painting'' or ''Painting (1946)'', is an oil-on-linen painting by the Irish-born artist Francis Bacon. It was originally intended to depict a chimpanzee in long grass (parts of which may be still visible); Bac ...
'' * Umberto Boccioni, '' The City Rises'' * Paul Cézanne,
The Bather
' * Marc Chagall, '' I and the Village'' *
Giorgio de Chirico Giuseppe Maria Alberto Giorgio de Chirico ( , ; 10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian artist and writer born in Greece. In the years before World War I, he founded the '' scuola metafisica'' art movement, which profoundly infl ...
, '' The Song of Love'' * Willem de Kooning, ''
Woman I ''Woman I'' is an Abstract Expressionist painting by American artist Willem de Kooning. The work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, in New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the Uni ...
'' * Salvador Dalí, '' The Persistence of Memory'' * Max Ernst,
Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale
' * Paul Gauguin,
Te aa no areois
' (The Seed of the Areoi) * Jasper Johns, '' Flag'' * Frida Kahlo,
Self-Portrait With Cropped Hair
' * Roy Lichtenstein, ''
Drowning Girl ''Drowning Girl'' (also known as ''Secret Hearts'' or ''I Don't Care! I'd Rather Sink'') is a 1963 American painting in oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas by Roy Lichtenstein, based on original art by Tony Abruzzo. The painting is conside ...
'' *
René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and bounda ...
, '' The Empire of Lights'' * René Magritte, ''
False Mirror ''The False Mirror'' (1928) is a surrealist oil painting by René Magritte that depicts a human eye framing a cloudy, blue sky. In the depiction of the eye in the painting, the clouds take the place normally occupied by the iris. The painting's or ...
'' * Kazimir Malevich, '' White on White'' 1918 * Henri Matisse, '' The Dance'' * Henri Matisse, '' L’Atelier Rouge'' *
Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being o ...
, '' Broadway Boogie-Woogie'' *
Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...
, ''
Water Lilies ''Water Lilies'' (or ''Nymphéas'', ) is a series of approximately 250 oil paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840–1926). The paintings depict his flower garden at his home in Giverny, and were the main focus of his artistic ...
'' triptych *
Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense of ...
, ''
Broken Obelisk ''Broken Obelisk'' is a sculpture designed by Barnett Newman between 1963 and 1967. Fabricated from three tons of Cor-Ten steel, which acquires a rust-colored patina, it is the largest and best known of his six sculptures. Four multiples of ...
'' * Barnett Newman, '' Vir Heroicus Sublimis'' (Man, Heroic and Sublime) * Pablo Picasso, '' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'' * Jackson Pollock,
One: Number 31, 1950
' * Henri Rousseau, '' The Dream'', 1910 * Henri Rousseau, '' The Sleeping Gypsy'' *
Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inclu ...
, ''
The Starry Night ''The Starry Night'' ( nl, De sterrennacht) is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. Painted in June 1889, it depicts the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Prove ...
'' *
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...
, '' Campbell's Soup Cans'' *
Andrew Wyeth Andrew Newell Wyeth ( ; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was an American visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century. In his ...
, ''
Christina's World ''Christina's World'' is a 1948 painting by American painter Andrew Wyeth and one of the best-known American paintings of the mid-20th century. It is a tempera work done in a realist style, depicting a woman semi-reclining on the ground in a tree ...
''


Selected collection highlights

File:VanGogh-starry night ballance1.jpg, , , 1889 File:Van Gogh The Olive Trees..jpg, , '' in the Background'', 1889 File:Henri Rousseau 010.jpg, , , 1897 File:Henri Matisse, 1909, La danse (I), Museum of Modern Art.jpg, , , 1909 File:Henri Rousseau 005.jpg, , , 1910 File:Atelier rouge matisse 1.jpg, , , 1911 File:WLA moma Umberto Boccioni Dynamism of a Soccer Player 1913.jpg, Umberto Boccioni, ''Dynamism of a Soccer Player'', 1913 File:Kazimir Malevich - 'Suprematist Composition- White on White', oil on canvas, 1918, Museum of Modern Art.jpg, , , 1918 File:Piet Mondrian, 1942 - Broadway Boogie Woogie.jpg,
Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being o ...
, '' Broadway Boogie Woogie'', 1942–1943 File:Le Grand Baigneur, par Paul Cézanne, Yorck.jpg, , File:Paul Gauguin - Te aa no areois - Google Art Project.jpg, , , 1892 File:Boy Leading a Horse.jpg, Pablo Picasso, ''
Boy Leading a Horse ''Jeune garçon au cheval'' (English: ''Boy Leading a Horse'') is an oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso. The painting is housed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was painted in Picasso's Rose Period from 1905 to 1906, when he was ...
'', 1905–06 File:Chagall IandTheVillage.jpg, Marc Chagall, '' I and the Village,'' 1911 File:Henri Matisse - View of Notre Dame. Paris, quai Saint-Michel, spring 1914.jpg, , , 1914 File:De Chirico's Love Song.jpg, , , 1914
It also holds works by a wide range of influential European and
American artists American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
including
Auguste Rodin François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...
, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Joan Miró,
Aristide Maillol Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol (; December 8, 1861 – September 27, 1944) was a French sculptor, painter, and printmaker.Le Normand-Romain, Antoinette . "Maillol, Aristide". ''Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online''. Oxford University Pr ...
,
Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being o ...
, Marcel Duchamp,
Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...
,
Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...
,
René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and bounda ...
, Henry Moore,
Alberto Giacometti Alberto Giacometti (, , ; 10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, Drafter, draftsman and Printmaking, printmaker. Beginning in 1922, he lived and worked mainly in Paris but regularly visited his hometown Borgonovo, ...
,
Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Amer ...
,
Edward Hopper Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Hopper created subdued drama ...
, Walker Evans,
Dorothea Lange Dorothea Lange (born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn; May 26, 1895 – October 11, 1965) was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange's ...
,
Arshile Gorky Arshile Gorky (; born Vostanik Manoug Adoian, hy, Ոստանիկ Մանուկ Ատոյեան; April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian-American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. He spent the last years of his ...
, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, David Smith,
Helen Frankenthaler Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...
,
Morris Louis Morris Louis Bernstein (November 28, 1912 – September 7, 1962), known professionally as Morris Louis, was an American painter. During the 1950s he became one of the earliest exponents of Color Field painting. While living in Washington, D. ...
,
Kenneth Noland Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was though ...
,
Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...
, Frank Stella,
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...
, Roy Lichtenstein, and hundreds of others.


Photography

Concerning photography, "the MoMA collection is one of the most important in the world, consisting of over 25,000 works, not only by photographers, utalso by journalists, scientists, entrepreneurs, and amateurs." The Department of Photography was founded by Beaumont Newhall in 1940 and developed a world-renowned
art photography Fine-art photography is photography created in line with the vision of the photographer as artist, using photography as a medium for creative expression. The goal of fine-art photography is to express an idea, a message, or an emotion. This stand ...
collection under
Edward Steichen Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography. Steichen was credited with tr ...
(curator 1947–1961). Steichen's most notable and lasting exhibit, named ''
The Family of Man ''The Family of Man'' was an ambitious exhibition of 503 photography, photographs from 68 countries curated by Edward Steichen, the director of the New York City Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA) Department of Photography. According to Steichen, ...
'', was seen by 9 million people. In 2003, the ''Family of Man'' photographic collection was added to UNESCO's
Memory of the World Register Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
in recognition of its historical value. Steichen's hand-picked successor, John Szarkowski (curator 1962–1991), guided the department with several notable exhibitions, including 1967s
New Documents ''New Documents'' was an influential documentary photography exhibition at Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1967, curated by John Szarkowski. It presented photographs by Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand and is said to have "repre ...
that presented photographs by
Diane Arbus Diane Arbus (; née Nemerov; March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971
" The New York ...
,
Lee Friedlander Lee Friedlander (born July 14, 1934) is an American photographer and artist. In the 1960s and 1970s, Friedlander evolved an influential and often imitated visual language of urban "social landscape," with many of his photographs including fragm ...
, and Garry Winogrand and is said to have "represented a shift in emphasis" and "identified a new direction in photography: pictures that seemed to have a casual, snapshot-like look and subject matter so apparently ordinary that it was hard to categorize". Under Szarkowski, it focused on a more traditionally modernist approach to the medium, one that emphasized documentary images and orthodox darkroom techniques.
Peter Galassi Peter Johnston Galassi (born April 18, 1951) is an American writer, curator, and art historian working in the field of photography. His principal fields are photography and nineteenth-century French art. Education Galassi graduated from Phillip ...
(curator 1991-2011) worked under his predecessor, whereas Quentin Bajac (curator 2013–2018) was hired from the outside. The current David Dechman Senior Curator of Photography is Roxana Marcoci, PhD.


Film

In 1932, museum founder Alfred Barr stressed the importance of introducing "the only great art form peculiar to the 20th century" to "the American public which should appreciate good films and support them". Museum Trustee and film producer
John Hay Whitney John Hay Whitney (August 17, 1904 – February 8, 1982) was U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of the ''New York Herald Tribune'', and president of the Museum of Modern Art. He was a member of the Whitney family. Early life Whit ...
became the first chairman of the Museum's Film Library from 1935 to 1951. The collection Whitney assembled with the help of film curator Iris Barry was so successful that in 1937 the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences commended the Museum with an award "for its significant work in collecting films ... and for the first time making available to the public the means of studying the historical and aesthetic development of the motion picture as one of the major arts". The first curator and founder of the film library was Iris Barry, a British film critic and author whose three decades of pioneering work in collecting films and presenting them in coherent artistic and historical contexts gained recognition for the cinema as the major new art form of our century. Barry and her successors have built a collection comprising some 8000 titles today, concentrating on assembling an outstanding collection of important works of international film art, emphasizing obtaining the highest-quality materials. Exiled film scholar
Siegfried Kracauer Siegfried Kracauer (; ; February 8, 1889 – November 26, 1966) was a German writer, journalist, sociologist, cultural critic, and film theorist. He has sometimes been associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. He is notable for ...
worked at the MoMA film archive on a psychological history of German film between 1941 and 1943. The result of his study, '' From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film'' (1947), traces the birth of Nazism from the cinema of the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
and helped lay the foundation of modern
film criticism Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, magazines and other popular mass-media outlet ...
. Under the Museum of Modern Art Department of Film, the film collection includes more than 25,000 titles and ranks as one of the world's finest museum archives of international film art. The department owns prints of many familiar feature-length movies, including ''
Citizen Kane ''Citizen Kane'' is a 1941 American drama film produced by, directed by, and starring Orson Welles. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Herman J. Mankiewicz. The picture was Welles' first feature film. ''Citizen Kane'' is frequently cited ...
'' and ''
Vertigo Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...
'', but its holdings also contains many less-traditional pieces, including
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...
's eight-hour ''
Empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
'', Fred Halsted's gay pornographic '' L.A. Plays Itself'' (screened before a capacity audience on April 23, 1974), various TV commercials, and
Chris Cunningham Chris Cunningham (born 15 October 1970) is a British video artist and music video director, best known for his music videos for electronic musicians such as Autechre, Squarepusher, and most notably Aphex Twin on videos for "Windowlicker" and ...
's music video for
Björk Björk Guðmundsdóttir ( , ; born 21 November 1965), known mononymously as Björk, is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and actress. Noted for her distinct three-octave vocal range and eccentric persona, she has de ...
's ''
All Is Full of Love "All Is Full of Love" is a song by Icelandic musician Björk from her third studio album, ''Homogenic'' (1997). The lyrics were inspired by love in spring and Ragnarök of Norse mythology. Björk's original version is a trip hop ballad with soul ...
''.


Library

The MoMA library is located in Midtown Manhattan, with offsite storage in Long Island City, Queens. The noncirculating collection documents modern and contemporary art, including painting, sculpture, prints, photography, film, performance, and architecture from 1880–present. The collection includes 300,000 books, 1,000 periodicals, and 40,000 files about artists and artistic groups. Over 11,000 artist books are in the collection. The libraries are open by appointment to all researchers. The library's catalog is called "Dadabase". Dadabase includes records for all of the material in the library, including books, artist books,
exhibition catalog There are two types of exhibition catalogue (or exhibition catalog): a printed list of exhibits at an art exhibition; and a directory of exhibitors at a trade fair or business-to-business event. Art or museum exhibition catalogues Catalogues for ...
s, special collections materials, and electronic resources. The MoMA's collection of artist books includes works by Ed Ruscha, Marcel Broodthaers, Susan Bee,
Carl Andre Carl Andre (born September 16, 1935) is an American minimalist artist recognized for his ordered linear and grid format sculptures and for the suspected murder of contemporary and wife, Ana Mendieta. His sculptures range from large public artw ...
, and
David Horvitz David Horvitz (born 1982) is an American artist who uses art books, photography, performance art, and mail art as media for his work. He is known for his work in the virtual sphere. Horvitz is a graduate from Bard College. Career Horvitz uses ...
. Additionally, the library has subscription electronic resources along with Dadabase. These include journal databases (such as JSTOR and Art Full Text), auction results indexes (ArtFact and
Artnet Artnet.com is an art market website. It is operated by Artnet Worldwide Corporation, which has headquarters in New York City, in the United States, and is owned by Artnet AG, a German publicly traded company based in Berlin that is listed on ...
), the
ARTstor Artstor is a nonprofit organization that builds and distributes the Digital Library, an online resource of more than 2.5 million images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences, and Shared Shelf, a Web-based cataloging and image manageme ...
image database, and WorldCat union catalog.


Architecture and design

MoMA's Department of Architecture and Design was founded in 1932 as the first museum department in the world dedicated to the intersection of architecture and design.Architecture and Design
, MoMA, retrieved November 30, 2011
The department's first director was Philip Johnson who served as curator between 1932–34 and 1946–54. The next departmental head was
Arthur Drexler Arthur Justin Drexler (13 March 1925 – 16 January 1987) was a museum curator and director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for 35 years. Life Drexler was born in Brooklyn and attended the High School of Music and Art, and The Cooper Union st ...
, who was curator from 1951 to 1956 and then served as head until 1986. The collection consists of 28,000 works including architectural models, drawings, and photographs. One of the highlights of the collection is the
Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloy ...
Archive. It also includes works from such legendary architects and designers as Frank Lloyd Wright,
Paul László Paul László or Paul Laszlo (6 February 1900 – 27 March 1993) was a Hungarian-born architect and interior designer whose work spanned eight decades and many countries. László built his reputation while designing interiors for houses, but in ...
, the Eameses, Betty Cooke,
Isamu Noguchi was an American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several ...
, and George Nelson. The design collection contains many industrial and manufactured pieces, ranging from a self-aligning
ball bearing A ball bearing is a type of rolling-element bearing that uses balls to maintain the separation between the bearing races. The purpose of a ball bearing is to reduce rotational friction and support radial and axial loads. It achieves this ...
to an entire Bell 47D1 helicopter. In 2012, the department acquired a selection of 14 video games, the basis of an intended collection of 40 that is to range from '' Pac-Man'' (1980) to '' Minecraft'' (2011).


Management


Attendance

MoMA attracted 706,060 visitors in 2020, a drop of sixty-five percent from 2019, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It ranked twenty-fifth on the List of most visited art museums in the world in 2020. MoMA has seen its average number of visitors rise from about 1.5 million a year to 2.5 million after its new granite and glass renovation. In 2009, the museum reported 119,000 members and 2.8 million visitors over the previous fiscal year. MoMA attracted its highest-ever number of visitors, 3.09 million, during its 2010 fiscal year; however, attendance dropped 11 percent to 2.8 million in 2011. Attendance in 2016 was 2.8 million, down from 3.1 million in 2015. The museum was open every day since its founding in 1929, until 1975, when it closed one day a week (originally Wednesdays) to reduce operating expenses. In 2012, it again opened every day, including Tuesday, the one day it has traditionally been closed.


Admission

The Museum of Modern Art charges an admission fee of $25 per adult. Upon MoMA's reopening, its admission cost increased from $12 to $20, making it one of the most expensive museums in the city. However, it has free entry on Fridays after 5:30pm, as part of the Uniqlo Free Friday Nights program. Many New York area college students also receive free admission to the museum.


Finances

A private non-profit organization, MoMA is the seventh-largest U.S. museum by budget; its annual revenue is about $145 million (none of which is profit). In 2011, the museum reported net assets (basically, a total of all the resources it has on its books, except the value of the art) of just over $1 billion. Unlike most museums, the museum eschews government funding, instead subsisting on a fragmented budget with a half-dozen different sources of income, none larger than a fifth. Before the economic crisis of late 2008, the MoMA's board of trustees decided to sell its equities in order to move into an all-cash position. An $858 million capital campaign funded the 2002–04 expansion, with David Rockefeller donating $77 million in cash. In 2005, Rockefeller pledged an additional $100 million toward the museum's endowment. In 2012,
Standard & Poor's S&P Global Ratings (previously Standard & Poor's and informally known as S&P) is an American credit rating agency (CRA) and a division of S&P Global that publishes financial research and analysis on stocks, bonds, and commodities. S&P is cons ...
, a
nationally recognized statistical rating organization A nationally recognized statistical rating organization (NRSRO) is a credit rating agency (CRA) approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to provide information that financial firms must rely on for certain regulatory purpos ...
, raised its long-term rating for the museum as it benefited from the fundraising of its trustees. After construction expenses for the new galleries are covered, the Modern estimates that some $65 million will go to its $650 million endowment. MoMA spent $32 million to acquire art for the fiscal year ending in June 2012. MoMA employed about 815 people in 2007. The museum's tax filings from the past few years suggest a shift among the highest paid employees from curatorial staff to management. The museum's director
Glenn D. Lowry Glenn David Lowry (born September 28, 1954) is an American art historian and director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City since 1995. His initiatives there include strengthening MoMA's contemporary art program, significantly devel ...
earned $1.6 million in 2009 and lives in a rent-free $6 million apartment above the museum. MoMA was forced to close in March 2020 during the
COVID-19 pandemic in New York City The first case of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City was confirmed on March 1, 2020, though later research showed that the novel coronavirus had been circulating in New York City since January, with cases of community transmission confirme ...
. Citing the coronavirus shutdown, MoMA fired its art educators in April 2020. In May 2020, it was reported that MoMA would reduce its annual budget from $180 to $135 million starting July 1. Exhibition and publication funding was cut by half, and staff reduced from around 960 to 800.


Key people


Officers and the board of trustees

Currently, the board of trustees includes 46 trustees and 15 life trustees. Even including the board's 14 "honorary" trustees, who do not have voting rights and do not play as direct a role in the museum, this amounts to an average individual contribution of more than $7 million. The Founders Wall was created in 2004, when MoMA's expansion was completed, and features the names of the actual founders in addition to those who gave significant gifts; about a half-dozen names have been added since 2004. For example,
Ileana Sonnabend Ileana Sonnabend (née Schapira, October 29, 1914 – October 21, 2007) was a Romanian-American art dealer of 20th-century art. The Sonnabend Gallery opened in Paris in 1962 and was instrumental in making American art of the 1960s known in Europe, ...
's name was added in 2012, even though she was only 15 when the museum was established in 1929. In Memoriam – David Rockefeller (1915–2017) * Honorary chairman – Ronald S. Lauder * Chairman emeritus – Robert B. Menschel * President emerita –
Agnes Gund Agnes Gund (born 1938) is an American philanthropist and arts patron, collector of modern and contemporary art, and arts education and social justice advocate. She is President Emerita and Life Trustee of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Chair ...
* President emeritus –
Donald B. Marron Sr. Donald Baird Marron (July 21, 1934 – December 6, 2019) was an American financier, private equity investor and entrepreneur, notable as the chairman and chief executive officer of brokerage firm Paine Webber from 1980 through the sale of ...
* Chairman – Jerry I. Speyer * Co-Chairman– Leon D. Black * President – Marie-Josée Kravis Vice chairmen: * Sid R. Bass * Mimi Haas * Marlene Hess * Richard E. Salomon * Director –
Glenn D. Lowry Glenn David Lowry (born September 28, 1954) is an American art historian and director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City since 1995. His initiatives there include strengthening MoMA's contemporary art program, significantly devel ...
* Treasurer – Richard E. Salomon * Assistant treasurer – James Gara * Secretary – Patty Lipshutz


Board of trustees

Board of trustees: * Wallis Annenberg * Sid R. Bass * Lawrence B. Benenson * Leon D. Black * Clarissa Alcock Bronfman *
Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Patricia "Patty" Phelps de Cisneros is a Venezuelan art collector and philanthropist who focuses on Latin American modernist and contemporary art from Brazil, Venezuela, and the Río de la Plata region of Argentina and Uruguay. Since the 1970s Cisn ...
* Edith Cooper * Paula Crown * David Dechman *
Anne Dias-Griffin Anne Dias-Griffin (born January 1, 1970) is a French-American investor and philanthropist. She is the founder and chief executive officer of Aragon, an investment firm active in global equities, with a focus on the internet, technology, and consu ...
* Glenn Dubin * John Elkann *
Laurence D. Fink Laurence Douglas Fink (born November 2, 1952) is an American billionaire businessman. He is the chairman and CEO of BlackRock, an American multinational investment management corporation. BlackRock is the largest money-management firm in the wor ...
* Kathleen Fuld * Howard Gardner * Victoria Mihelson * Mimi Haas * Alexandra A. Herzan * Marlene Hess * Jill Kraus * Marie-Josée Kravis * Ronald S. Lauder * Thomas H. Lee * Michael Lynne * Khalil Gibran Muhammad * Philip S. Niarchos * James G. Niven *
Peter Norton Peter Norton (born November 14, 1943) is an American programmer, software publisher, author, and philanthropist. He is best known for the computer programs and books that bear his name and portrait. Norton sold his software business to Symant ...
* Maja Oeri * Michael S. Ovitz * David Rockefeller Jr. * Sharon Percy Rockefeller * Richard E. Salomon * Marcus Samuelsson * Anna Marie Shapiro *
Anna Deavere Smith Anna Deavere Smith is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is known for her roles as National Security Advisor Dr. Nancy McNally in ''The West Wing'' (2000–06), hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus in the Showtime series ''N ...
* Jerry I. Speyer * Ricardo Steinbruch * Daniel Sundheim * Alice M. Tisch *
Edgar Wachenheim III Edgar Wachenheim III (born 1937) is an American investor and CEO and chairman of Greenhaven Associates. He founded that investment company, a former branch of Central National-Gottesman, in 1987 and has worked there since as CEO. Greenhaven Asso ...
*
Gary Winnick Gary Winnick is an American financier best known for founding and being Chairman of Global Crossing between 1997 and 2002, when it declared bankruptcy. As of 2015, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Winnick & Company, a Los Ang ...

Life trustees: * Eli Broad * Douglas S. Cramer * Joel S. Ehrenkranz * Gianluigi Gabetti *
Agnes Gund Agnes Gund (born 1938) is an American philanthropist and arts patron, collector of modern and contemporary art, and arts education and social justice advocate. She is President Emerita and Life Trustee of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Chair ...
* Barbara Jakobson * Werner H. Kramarsky * June Noble Larkin *
Donald B. Marron Sr. Donald Baird Marron (July 21, 1934 – December 6, 2019) was an American financier, private equity investor and entrepreneur, notable as the chairman and chief executive officer of brokerage firm Paine Webber from 1980 through the sale of ...
* Robert B. Menschel *
Peter G. Peterson Peter George Peterson (June 5, 1926 – March 20, 2018) was an American investment banker who served as United States Secretary of Commerce from February 29, 1972, to February 1, 1973, under the Richard Nixon administration. Before serving as Sec ...
* Emily Rauh Pulitzer * David Rockefeller * Jeanne C. Thayer Honorary trustees: * Lin Arison * Jan Cowles * Lewis B. Cullman * H.R.H. Duke Franz of Bavaria *
Maurice R. Greenberg Maurice Raymond “Hank” Greenberg (born May 4, 1925) is an American business executive and former chairman and chief executive officer of American International Group (AIG). Early life Greenberg was born into a Jewish family in Greenwich Vil ...
* Wynton Marsalis * Richard E. Oldenburg *
Richard Rogers Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside (23 July 1933 – 18 December 2021) was a British architect noted for his modernist and functionalist designs in high-tech architecture. He was a senior partner at Rogers Stirk Harbour + Pa ...
* Ted Sann * Gilbert Silverman *
Yoshio Taniguchi Yoshio Taniguchi (谷口 吉生, ''Taniguchi Yoshio''; born 1937) is a Japanese architect best known for his redesign of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, which was reopened November 20, 2004. Critics have emphasized Taniguchi's fusion ...
* Eugene V. Thaw


Directors

*
Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Alfred Hamilton Barr Jr. (January 28, 1902 – August 15, 1981) was an American art historian and the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. From that position, he was one of the most influential forces in the development of ...
(1929–1943) * No director (1943–1949; the job was handled by the chairman of the museum's coordination committee and the director of the Curatorial Department) *
Rene d'Harnoncourt René d'Harnoncourt (May 17, 1901 – August 13, 1968) was an Austrian-born American art curator. He was Director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from 1949 to 1967. Background Of Austrian, Czech, and French descent, Count Rene d'Harnoncou ...
(1949–1968) *
Bates Lowry Bates Lowry (June 23, 1923 – March 12, 2004) was an art historian who was a director of the Museum of Modern Art and founding director of the National Building Museum. Early life He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio received an undergraduate degree ...
(1968–1969) * John Brantley Hightower (1970–1972) * Richard Oldenburg (1972–1995) *
Glenn D. Lowry Glenn David Lowry (born September 28, 1954) is an American art historian and director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City since 1995. His initiatives there include strengthening MoMA's contemporary art program, significantly devel ...
(1995–present)


Chief curators

* Philip Johnson, chief curator of architecture and design (1932–1934 and 1946–1954) *
Arthur Drexler Arthur Justin Drexler (13 March 1925 – 16 January 1987) was a museum curator and director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for 35 years. Life Drexler was born in Brooklyn and attended the High School of Music and Art, and The Cooper Union st ...
, chief curator of architecture and design (1951–1956) *
Peter Galassi Peter Johnston Galassi (born April 18, 1951) is an American writer, curator, and art historian working in the field of photography. His principal fields are photography and nineteenth-century French art. Education Galassi graduated from Phillip ...
, chief curator of photography (1991–2011) *
Cornelia Butler Cornelia H. "Connie" Butler (born 1 February 1963) is an American museum curator, author, and art historian. Since 2013, Butler is the Chief Curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Career Butler is a 1980 graduate of Marlborough School, and ...
, chief curator of drawings (2006–2013) *
Barry Bergdoll Barry Bergdoll is Meyer Schapiro Professor of art history in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University and from 2007 to 2019 a curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, ...
, chief curator of architecture and design (2007–2013) * Rajendra Roy, chief curator of film (2007–present) *
Ann Temkin Ann Temkin (born December 26, 1959) is an American art curator, and currently the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Early life and education Temkin was born in Torri ...
, chief curator of painting and sculpture (2008–present) *
Klaus Biesenbach Klaus Biesenbach (born 1966)Erica Orden (December 26, 2009)Herr Zeitgeist''New York Magazine''. is a European American curator and the museum director. He is the Director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, with Berggruen Museum and Scharf-Gerstenberg ...
, director of
MoMA PS1 MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution located in Court Square in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, the ...
and chief curator at large (2009–2018) * Sabine Breitwieser, chief curator of media and performance art (2010–2013) * Christophe Cherix, chief curator of prints and illustrated books (2010–2013), drawings and prints (2013–present) *
Paola Antonelli Paola Antonelli (born 1963 in Sassari, Sardinia, Italy) is an Italian author, editor, architect, and curator. She is currently the Senior Curator of the Department of Architecture & Design as well as the Director of R&D at the Museum of Modern ...
, director of research and development and senior curator of architecture and design (2012–present) * Quentin Bajac, chief curator of photography (2012–2018) * Stuart Comer, chief curator of media and performance art (2014–present) * Martino Stierli, chief curator of architecture and design (2015–present)


Controversy


Women Artists Visibility Event (W.A.V.E.)

On June 14, 1984 the Women Artists Visibility Event (W.A.V.E.), a demonstration of 400 women artists, was held in front of the newly renovated Museum of Modern Art to protest the lack of female representation in its opening exhibition, "An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture". The exhibition featured 165 artists; only 14 of those were women.


Art repatriation issues

The MoMA has been involved in several claims initiated by families for artworks lost in the Holocaust which ended up in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. In 2009, the heirs of German artist George Grosz filed a lawsuit seeking restitution of three works by Grosz, and the heirs of Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy filed a lawsuit demanding the return of the painting by Pablo Picasso, entitled ''
Boy Leading a Horse ''Jeune garçon au cheval'' (English: ''Boy Leading a Horse'') is an oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso. The painting is housed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was painted in Picasso's Rose Period from 1905 to 1906, when he was ...
'' (1905–1906). In another case, after a decade long court fight, in 2015 the MoMA returned a painting entitled ''Sand Hills'' by German artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner to the Fischer family because it had been stolen by Nazis.


Strike MoMA

Strike MoMA is a 2021 movement to strike the museum targeting what its supporters have called the "toxic philanthropy" of the museum's leadership.


See also

* List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City *
List of most-visited museums in the United States This is a list of the most-visited museums in the United States in 2020. It is based upon the annual survey of museum attendance by the Art Newspaper published in March 2021, the TEA-AECOM Museum survey, published in September 2021, and some ...
*
Dorothy Canning Miller Dorothy Canning Miller (February 6, 1904 – July 11, 2003) was an American art curator and one of the most influential people in American modern art for more than half of the 20th century. The first professionally trained curator at the Museum o ...
* Sam Hunter *
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
* Talk to Me (exhibition) * ''
The Family of Man ''The Family of Man'' was an ambitious exhibition of 503 photography, photographs from 68 countries curated by Edward Steichen, the director of the New York City Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA) Department of Photography. According to Steichen, ...
'' exhibit (1955) * WikiProject MoMA


References


Citations


Sources

* Allan, Kenneth R. "Understanding ''Information''", in ''Conceptual Art: Theory, Myth, and Practice''. Ed. Michael Corris. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. pp. 144–168. * * Bee, Harriet S. and Michelle Elligott. ''Art in Our Time. A Chronicle of the Museum of Modern Art'', New York 2004, . * Fitzgerald, Michael C. ''Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the Market for Twentieth-Century Art''. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995. * Geiger, Stephan. ''The Art of Assemblage. The Museum of Modern Art, 1961. Die neue Realität der Kunst in den frühen sechziger Jahren'', (Diss. University Bonn 2005), München 2008, . * Harr, John Ensor and Peter J. Johnson. ''The Rockefeller Century: Three Generations of America's Greatest Family''. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988. * Kert, Bernice. ''Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: The Woman in the Family''. New York: Random House, 1993. * Lynes, Russell, ''Good Old Modern: An Intimate Portrait of the Museum of Modern Art,'' New York: Athenaeum, 1973. * Reich, Cary. ''The Life of Nelson A. Rockefeller: Worlds to Conquer 1908–1958''. New York: Doubleday, 1996. * * * * *


External links

*
MoMA Exhibition History List (1929–Present)

MoMA Audio

MoMA's YouTube Channel

MoMA's free online courses on Coursera

MoMA Learning

MoMA Magazine
*

* ttps://artsandculture.google.com/partner/moma-the-museum-of-modern-art?hl=en Museum of Modern Artwithin Google Arts & Culture * {{Authority control 1929 establishments in New York City Art museums established in 1929 Art museums and galleries in New York City Buildings and structures completed in 2004 Contemporary art galleries in the United States Cultural infrastructure completed in 1937 Edward Durell Stone buildings Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums Institutions founded by the Rockefeller family Kohn Pedersen Fox buildings Midtown Manhattan Modern art museums in the United States Modernist architecture in New York City Museums in Manhattan Museums of American art Philip Johnson buildings Compasso d'Oro Award recipients FIAF-affiliated institutions