Alfred Hamilton Barr, Jr. (January 28, 1902 – August 15, 1981), known as Alfred H. Barr, Jr., was an art historian and the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
American art historian and administrator who played an enormously important and controversial role in establishing an intellectual and institutional framework for the study and appreciation of modern art. He was born in Detroit, the son of a Presbyterian minister, and studied art and archaeology at Princeton University, graduating in 1922 and taking an MA degree the following year. After several months travelling in Europe, he returned to the USA and taught art history in several leading institutions including Wellesley College, where he taught the first course at an American college devoted solely to 20th-century art. In 1929 he was appointed director of the newly founded Museum of Modern Art.
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. Read the rest of this entry »
The building of the Louvre in its present form was begun in 1546 by François I , who also founded the royal collections, acquiring works by Leonardo , Raphael , and Titian . Louis XIV was both the most enthusiastic developer of the site and the most heroic art collector (buying in 1661 much of the Mazarin Collection that contained many paintings owned by Charles I of England), and under him the collection was briefly moved into the Louvre. When Versailles was established, however, the collection was dispersed. Read the rest of this entry »
