View across garden, in new MoMA building by Yoshio Taniguchi.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City on 53rd Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. It is one of the leading museums of modern art in the world. The Museum of Modern Art is complementary to and sometimes considered a sister museum to the nearby Metropolitan Museum of Art, although the latter is a “universal museum”, where modern art is only one area of specialism among many.Contents

History

The Museum of Modern Art was founded in 1929 by a triumvirate of patrons: Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (wife of John D. Rockefeller Jr), Mary Quinn Sullivan, and Lillie P. Bliss. It was Rockefeller Junior who provided the bulk of the finances behind its construction and upkeep; and his son Nelson, who became its flamboyant president, was the prime instigator of its publicity, acquisitions and expansion into new headquarters during the 1930’s. The family has continued to maintain strong links to the museum, with a number of members as trustees, conspicuous among them David Rockefeller, the current chairman emeritus, and his son, David Rockefeller, Jr..

At the time, no American museum was devoted exclusively to modern art. Under the guidance of its first director, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the museum’s holdings quickly expanded from an initial gift of eight prints and one drawing. First housed in six rooms of galleries and offices in Manhattan’s Heckscher Building, the museum moved into three more temporary locations within the next ten years. During that time it initiated many exhibitions of noted artists, such as Van Gogh in 1935.

MoMA’s permanent and current home, designed in the International Style by the modernist architects Philip L. Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone, opened to the public on May 10, 1939.

Artworks

Inside the MoMA building.

Considered by many to have the best collection of modern masterpieces in the world, MoMA’s holdings include more than 150,000 individual pieces in addition to approximately 22,000 films and four million film stills. The collection houses such important and familiar works as:
The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh,
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso,
The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali,
Broadway Boogie Woogie by Piet Mondrian,
Water Lilies triptych by Claude Monet,
Dance by Henri Matisse,
The Bather by Paul Cezanne,
Self-Portrait With Cropped Hair by Frida Kahlo

It also holds works by leading American artists such as Jackson Pollock, Cindy Sherman, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jasper Johns, Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, Chuck Close, Georgia O’Keefe and Ralph Bakshi. MoMA developed a world-renowned art photography collection, first under Edward Steichen and then John Szarkowski, as well as an important film collection under the Museum of Modern Art Department of Film and Video. MoMA also has an important design collection, which includes works from such legendary designers as Paul Laszlo, the Eameses, Isamu Noguchi, and George Nelson. The design collection also contains many industrial and manufactured pieces, ranging from a self-aligning ball bearing to an entire Bell 47D1 helicopter.

Renovation

MoMA’s Midtown location underwent extensive renovations in the 2000s, closing on May 21, 2002 and reopening to the public in a building redesigned by the Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi on November 20, 2004. From June 29, 2002 until September 27, 2004, a portion of its collection was on display in what was dubbed MoMA QNS, a former Swingline staple factory in Long Island City, Queens. making it one of the most expensive museums in the city; however it has free entry to all on Fridays after 4 p.m., thanks to sponsorship from Target Stores. The architecture of the renovation is controversial. At its opening, some critics thought that Taniguchi’s design was a fine example of contemporary architecture, while many others were extremely displeased with certain aspects of the design, such as the “flow” of the space.

MoMA has seen its average number of visitors rise to 2.5 million from about 1.5 million a year before its new granite and glass renovation. The museum’s director, Glenn Lowry, expects average visitor numbers eventually to settle in at around 2.1 million.