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“Inventing The Modern: Untold Stories Of The Women Who Shaped The Museum of Modern Art” to be Published in September 2024
The Museum of Modern Art
Essays by Distinguished Contemporary Women Celebrate the Trailblazers Who Founded and Impacted the Museum in Its Early Decades
The Museum of Modern Art today announces the forthcoming publication of Inventing the Modern: Untold Stories of the Women Who Shaped The Museum of Modern Art, a revelatory account of the Museum’s earliest years told through newly commissioned profiles of 14 women who had a decisive impact on the formation and development of the institution. Inventing the Modern comprises illuminating new essays on the women who, as founders, curators, patrons, and directors of various departments, made enduring contributions to MoMA during its early decades (especially between 1929 and 1945), creating new models for how to envision, establish, and operate a museum in an era when the field of modern art was uncharted territory.
The publication, which will be available in September 2024, is edited by Ann Temkin, The Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, and Romy Silver-Kohn, researcher in the Museum’s Department of Painting and Sculpture.
Press Kit
Images
The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West Fifty-Third Street, 1939. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. Photograph by Eliot Elisofon
Sarah Newmeyer, director of publicity at The Museum of Modern Art, mid- to late 1930s. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York.
Margaret Scolari Barr, wife of MoMA’s founding director Alfred H. Barr Jr. and essential partner in the Museum’s early years, 1932. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York.
The staff of The Museum of Modern Art in front of 11 West Fifty-Third Street, 1937 The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. Photograph by Soichi Sunami. © The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Iris Barry, curator of The Museum of Modern Art’s Film Library, and John E. Abbott, director of The Film Library, 1930s. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. Photograph by Lewis Jacobs.
Visitors at The Museum of Modern Art, c. 1939–40 The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York.
Curator Dorothy Miller installing Alexander Calder’s Black Widow (1959) in The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, 1967. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. Photograph by Dan Budnik. ©2023 The Estate of Dan Budnik.
Alfred H. Barr, Jr., founding director of The Museum of Modern Art, Elizabeth Catlett, artist, Dorothy Miller, associate curator of painting and sculpture, and Charles White, artist, having tea in the Museum’s penthouse, 1943. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York.
Dorothy Dudley, registrar at The Museum of Modern Art, 1940. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. Photograph by Eliot Elisofon.
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, one of the three founders of The Museum of Modern Art, 1922. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. Rockefeller Archive Center
Mary Quinn Sullivan, one of the three founders of The Museum of Modern Art, n.d. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York