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MODERN ART GALLERY BIOGRAPHY

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The Museum of Modern Art owes a large share of its success to women. The Museum was the idea and creation of three women, and from those founders of 1929 to the associate director and president of the Museum today, women have been instrumental in the development of the institution's mission, program, and collection. This essay highlights a few of the innumerable contributions they have made to the Museum over its more than eighty-year history—as curators, administrators, scholars, artists, patrons, and activists. While meant to be informative, it is partial and by no means comprehensive. Organized alphabetically, it presents a selection of brief biographical and historical notes, with an emphasis on the Museum's early years. The goal is to highlight significant achievements and innovations by women, often linked with the establishment of programs that MoMA and many other museums now take for granted.In 1929 Bliss founded The Museum of Modern Art with Mary Quinn Sullivan and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller.1 She had been a financial supporter of the 1913 Armory Show, of which her friend, artist Arthur B. Davies, was a main organizer, and she had purchased multiple works from the show. Another major buyer at the Armory Show was John Quinn, who within a decade amassed the most important collection of modern art in the country. When Quinn died, in 1924, Bliss, along with Sullivan, made purchases from the auction of his collection. She also acquired work from Davies's collection after his death, in 1928. Bliss herself died on March 12, 1931, when the Museum was not yet two years old. At that time she owned twenty-six works by Paul Cézanne, including The Bather (c. 1885), in what was considered one of the most discerning privately held groups of Cézannes in the United States, as well as works by Honoré Daumier, Davies, Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Odilon Redon, Pierre-August Renoir, Henri Rousseau, Georges considered one of the most discerning privately held groups of Cézannes in the United States, as well as works by Honoré Daumier, Davies, Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Seurat, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Her collection was valued at nearly $1.14 million and, in a complete surprise to staff and trustees at the Museum, including Rockefeller and director Alfred H. Barr, Jr., it was revealed after her death that she had bequeathed the largest and most important part of it to MoMA.2 Her will included two stipulations: three specific works could never be sold or otherwise disposed of (the rest could be deaccessioned provided the funds be used to acquire other artworks) and MoMA must raise $1 million to endow the bequest. This was during the Great Depression, and the Museum could only raise $600,000. That proved sufficient, however, and in 1934 the Bliss bequest was officially acquired. Through this unparalleled gift, the Museum established the nucleus of its collection.Barry, born and educated in Birmingham, England, was a film critic for the London weekly The Spectator from 1925 to 1930, motion-picture editor of the London Daily Mail, cofounder of the London Film Society in 1925, and author of the first serious book of film criticism published in England, Let's Go to the Pictures (1926). She moved to New York in 1930 and joined the staff of the Museum in 1932. In 1935 MoMA established its Film Library, with Barry as its curator and guiding light. That film was an art form was a completely new idea, and the American film studios were initially skeptical. Years of advocacy by Barry led them to realize that by depositing prints of their works in the library they could both clean out their vaults and build an enduring legacy. In addition, Barry brokered the nonprofit feature film exhibition in North America; the studios agreed that after two years of a commercial run, a film could enter the library archive and be screened for educational purposes, as long as admission was not charged. In 1940 she organized the exhibition D. W. Griffith, American Film Master at MoMA, establishing the paradigm for film curatorship, and wrote the accompanying publication, still one of the greatest books on film in the history of the medium. In 1946 she was named director of the Film Library, in addition to curator, and held both titles until her retirement, in 1951.