How Modern the Modern Museum?

This year marks the fortieth birthday of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Just as a beautiful woman on the threshold of her forties views the future with, to put it gently, misgivings, so MOMA (as it is acronymically, and sometimes acidly, known) is approaching its coming anniversary with mixed feelings: pride in its past accomplishments, coupled with anxiety and doubt as to its future function. Basically, its troubles are defined by its name. How can a forty-year-old, i.e., middle-aged, institution stay “modern” forever?

Of course, time itself has taken its toll. For one thing, the pioneers who started the museum and set forth its guidelines are all either leaving or have left. Alfred H. Barr Jr., founder and long-time Director of Collections, retired two years ago; René d’Harnon-court, the Director, was tragically killed in a car accident last year just before his retirement was due; and this year Dorothy Miller, discoverer of a host of now famous painters and sculptors, will also leave—the last of the Old Guard.

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Ruth Berenson

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This year marks the fortieth birthday of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Just as a beautiful woman on the threshold of her forties views the future with, to put it gently, misgivings, so MOMA (as it is acronymically, and sometimes acidly, known) is approaching its coming anniversary with mixed feelings: pride in its past accomplishments, coupled with anxiety and doubt as to its future function. Basically, its troubles are defined by its name. How can a forty-year-old, i.e., middle-aged, institution stay “modern” forever?

Of course, time itself has taken its toll. For one thing, the pioneers who started the museum and set forth its guidelines are all either leaving or have left. Alfred H. Barr Jr., founder and long-time Director of Collections, retired two years ago; René d’Harnon-court, the Director, was tragically killed in a car accident last year just before his retirement was due; and this year Dorothy Miller, discoverer of a host of now famous painters and sculptors, will also leave—the last of the Old Guard.