Eric M. Wolf
2006 marked the 25th anniversary of the death of Alfred H. Barr, Jr., founding director of the Museum of Modern Art. It was also the 70th anniversary of the important exhibition he curated, Cubism and Abstract Art, of 1929. Barr’s career was without rival in establishing the canon of modern art his achievement is still a major point of reference to all discussion of the art of modernism. This paper takes stock of his contribution a quarter century after his passing.
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Eric M. Wolf, PhD
Director of the Library, New York School of Interior Design and Independent Scholar
246 West End Avenue, #8F
New York, NY 10023
On the 70th Anniversary of Cubism and Abstract Art: Alfred H. Barr, Jr.’s Legacy
The twenty-fifth anniversary of the passing of Alfred H. Barr, Jr. coincides with the seventieth anniversary of his seminal exhibition and catalog Cubism and Abstract Art [1] These two anniversaries taken together are a powerful reminder that “modern art” is definitely no longer contemporary art or, in Barr’s words, “art in our times”. [2 These anniversaries further invite a retrospective look at Alfred Barr’s contribution to the shaping of the understanding and presentation of modernism and its context in contemporary museum practices, as well its broader reception by society at large.
The Contents of a Modern Museum
In less than a decade, starting in 1929 with the founding of the Museum...
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