The Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art (stylized MoMA) is an art museum <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_museum> located in Midtown <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midtown_(Manhattan)> Manhattan <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan> in New York City <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City>, United States <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States>, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_art>, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world.The museum's collection offers an unparalleled overview in modern and contemporary art, including works of architecture <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture> and design <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design>, drawings <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawings>, painting <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painting>,sculpture <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sculpture>, photography <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography>, prints <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenprints>, illustrated books <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illustrated_books> and artist's books <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%27s_books>, film <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film>, and electronic media <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_media>.'s library and archives hold over 300,000 books, artist books, and periodicals, as well as individual files on more than 70,000 artists. The archives contain primary source material related to the history of modern and contemporary art <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_art>. It also houses an award-winning fine dining restaurant, The Modern, run by Alsace <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alsace>-born chef Gabriel Kreuther.idea for The Museum of Modern Art was developed in 1928 primarily by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abby_Aldrich_Rockefeller> (wife of John D. Rockefeller Jr. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller_Jr.>) and two of her friends, Lillie P. Bliss <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillie_P._Bliss> and Mary Quinn Sullivan <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Quinn_Sullivan>. They became known variously as "the Ladies", "the daring ladies" and "the adamantine ladies". They rented modest quarters for the new museum in rented spaces in the Heckscher Building at 730 Fifth Avenue (corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street) in Manhattan, and it opened to the public on November 7, 1929, nine days after the Wall Street Crash <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Crash>. Abby had invited A. Conger Goodyear <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=A._Conger_Goodyear&action=edit&redlink=1>, the former president of the board of trustees of the Albright Art Gallery <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albright-Knox_Art_Gallery> in Buffalo, New York <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo,_New_York>, 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.enlisted Paul J. Sachs <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_J._Sachs> and Frank Crowninshield <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Crowninshield> to join him as founding trustees. Sachs, the associate director and curator of prints and drawings at theFogg Art Museum <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogg_Art_Museum> at Harvard University <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Barr>, a promising young protege. 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 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Gogh>, Gauguin <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauguin>, Cézanne <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9zanne>, and Seurat <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seurat>.housed in six rooms of galleries and offices on the twelfth 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 ten years. Abby's husband 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 [2].that time it initiated many more exhibitions of noted artists, such as the lone Vincent van Gogh <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh> exhibition on November 4, 1935. Containing an unprecedented sixty-six oils and fifty drawings from the Netherlands <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands>, and poignant excerpts from the artist's letters, it was a major public success and became "a precursor to the hold van Gogh has to this day on the contemporary imagination".museum also gained international prominence with the hugely successful and now famous Picasso <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasso> retrospective of 1939-40, held in conjunction with the Art Institute of Chicago <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Institute_of_Chicago>. 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.by many to have the best collection of modern Western masterpieces in the world, MoMA's holdings include more than 150,000 individual pieces in addition to approximately 22,000 films and 4 million film stills. The collection houses such important and familiar works as the following:The Starry Night <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starry_Night> by Vincent van Gogh <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh>, The Sleeping Gypsy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sleeping_Gypsy> by Henri Rousseau <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Rousseau>, The Dream <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_(painting)> by Henri Rousseau <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Rousseau>, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Demoiselles_d%27Avignon> by Pablo Picasso <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso>, The Persistence of Memory <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Persistence_of_Memory> by Salvador Dalн <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD>, Broadway Boogie Woogie <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadway_Boogie_Woogie> by Piet Mondrian <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Mondrian>,etc [10, p. 53-54].