Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and the Intellectual Origins of the Museum of Modern Art

Growing up with the twentieth century, Alfred Barr (1902-1981), founding director ofthe Museum of Modern Art, harnessed the cataclysm that was modernism. In this book -- partintellectual biography, part institutional history -- Sybil Gordon Kantor tells the story of therise of modern art in America and of the man responsible for its triumph. Following the trajectoryof Barr's career from the 1920s through the 1940s, Kantor penetrates the myths, both positive andnegative, that surround Barr and his achievements.Barr fervently believed in an aesthetic based onthe intrinsic traits of a work of art and the materials and techniques involved in its creation.Kantor shows how this formalist approach was expressed in the organizational structure of themultidepartmental museum itself, whose collections, exhibitions, and publications all expressedBarr's vision. At the same time, she shows how Barr's ability to reconcile classical objectivity andmythic irrationality allowed him to perceive modernism as an open-ended phenomenon that expandedbeyond purist abstract modernism to include surrealist, nationalist, realist, and expressionistart.Drawing on interviews with Barr's contemporaries as well as on Barr's extensive correspondence,Kantor also paints vivid portraits of, among others, Jere Abbott, Katherine Dreier, Henry-RussellHitchcock, Philip Johnson, Lincoln Kirstein, Agnes Mongan, J. B. Neumann, and Paul Sachs.

Sybil Gordon Kantor is an independent scholar living in Columbus, Ohio, and Lugano, Switzerland.