The leading American museum devoted to the modern tradition in the visual arts. At its founding in 1929, New York’s MoMA represented an original concept in the notion of a “museum,” since almost none then collected modern art. Only the Washington, D.C., establishment founded by Duncan Phillips preceded MoMA in specializing in the recent past. However, the Phillips Collection (as it is now known) includes a small old master collection as well as significant representation of impressionism and other nineteenth-century tendencies. By contrast, from the beginning MoMA focused exclusively on the work of postimpressionists, particularly Cézanne, and their artistic descendants. (To this day, however, the Phillips Collection boasts a much finer representation of early American modernism.) MoMA also led the way in presenting photography, film, and design within an art museum context.
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