Museum of Modern Art

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A New York museum whose collection and programs have helped define the history of modern and contemporary art.

Last updated October 14, 2026

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Overview

The Museum of Modern Art, widely known as MoMA, is a nonprofit art museum in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Established in 1929, it was created to present modern art as a major field of public culture at a time when museums in the United States were more strongly associated with historical art. Its founders were Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan. The institution opened shortly after the Wall Street Crash and initially operated in temporary premises before moving through several locations and eventually establishing its principal home on West 53rd Street. MoMA’s identity is built around collecting, exhibiting, preserving, researching, publishing, and interpreting art from the late nineteenth century to the present. Its holdings encompass painting, sculpture, drawing, prints, photography, architecture, design, artists’ books, film, electronic media, performance, and other time-based practices. The museum describes its evolving collection as containing almost 200,000 works from around the world. Its scope has expanded from an early emphasis on European modernism and canonical twentieth-century painting toward a more geographically and socially diverse account of modern and contemporary culture. Alfred H. Barr Jr., MoMA’s first director, played a formative role in establishing the museum’s curatorial structure and intellectual influence. Under his leadership, the museum treated modern art not as a narrow movement but as a broad network of developments across painting, sculpture, architecture, design, photography, film, and new media. Acquisitions and exhibitions associated with artists such as Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, and many other modernists helped make the collection a reference point for audiences, scholars, artists, and other museums. The institution has repeatedly enlarged and rethought its physical and organizational structure. Major building projects in the 1980s and early 2000s expanded galleries and public facilities, including a renovation designed by Yoshio Taniguchi that reopened in 2004. MoMA also developed a formal relationship with P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in Queens, which became MoMA PS1 and extended the institution’s programming into experimental and contemporary art. A further expansion and renovation reopened in 2019, adding gallery space and enabling a broader presentation of the collection. MoMA operates as more than a gallery complex. Its public offer includes temporary exhibitions, collection displays, film screenings, performances, lectures, research, educational programs, digital publishing, membership, retail, and an extensive publishing program. Campaigns such as the 2019 “A new MoMA” reopening effort and collection-focused initiatives have presented the museum as a place of recurring discovery rather than a static set of masterpieces. The museum’s international influence comes from the combination of its collection, scholarly work, traveling exhibitions, digital access, and recognizable visual identity. It remains an active institution whose role is to connect historical modernism with contemporary artistic practice while continually revising the stories its collection tells.

History

MoMA was conceived in 1929 by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan as an institution devoted to modern art. It opened in New York shortly after the Wall Street Crash, initially using temporary space in the Heckscher Building on Fifth Avenue. A. Conger Goodyear served as its first president and Alfred H. Barr Jr. became its first director. Barr established an ambitious program that connected European modernism with developments in American art and organized the museum’s activities across multiple media rather than restricting it to painting and sculpture. During its early decades, MoMA developed a collection and exhibition program that strongly influenced how modern art was taught, displayed, and discussed. The museum acquired works across painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design, film, and printmaking. Acquisitions such as Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night and Pablo Picasso’s Girl Before a Mirror became particularly prominent examples of the institution’s ability to make modern art central to public museum culture. Its exhibitions and publications helped establish narratives around movements including Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, modern architecture, and industrial design. The museum’s physical development was closely tied to its institutional growth. It eventually established its principal building on West 53rd Street and underwent major expansions in the 1980s and again around the turn of the twenty-first century. Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi designed a major renovation that reopened in 2004 and nearly doubled the museum’s exhibition and program capacity. MoMA later formalized its relationship with the contemporary art center P.S.1 in Queens. The resulting MoMA PS1 partnership gave the institution a distinct venue for experimental, emerging, and contemporary practices. In the 2000s and 2010s, MoMA broadened the geographical and cultural range of its collection and sought to present modern art through more interconnected narratives. This included greater attention to design, media, performance, artists’ archives, and artists historically underrepresented in major museum collections. The museum’s 2019 expansion and renovation added substantial gallery space and enabled more frequent rotation of collection displays. Its communications during the reopening emphasized change, discovery, and the idea that a visit could reveal different relationships among works over time. Today, MoMA combines collection care with exhibitions, film programming, research, education, publishing, digital initiatives, membership, and retail. Its collection includes almost 200,000 works spanning roughly the past 150 years. The museum continues to acquire and preserve work in traditional and time-based forms, including experimental cinema and digital media. As a nonprofit institution, it relies on a mixture of admissions, membership, philanthropy, retail, publishing, endowment resources, and other institutional support; no financial figures are included here because the supplied materials do not provide a sufficiently specific source and period. MoMA’s continuing significance lies both in its holdings and in its ability to revise the frameworks through which modern and contemporary art is encountered.

2023
Just Above Midtown Archives acquired
[3]MoMA Year in Review 2022–23moma.org
The museum acquired the archives of the influential Just Above Midtown gallery and its founder Linda Goode Bryant.
2023
Ken Jacobs moving-image archive expanded
[5]MoMA acquisition of Ken Jacobs workstheartnewspaper.com
MoMA announced the acquisition of 212 works and related materials by experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs.
2019
Expanded museum reopens
[7]Expanded museum reopensfontsinuse.com
MoMA reopened after another major expansion, adding gallery space and supporting a broader, more frequently changing presentation of its collection.
2004
Major Taniguchi renovation reopens
[1]Museum of Modern Arten.wikipedia.org
A major building project designed by Yoshio Taniguchi reopened the museum with greatly expanded exhibition and program capacity.
2000
Relationship with P.S.1 formalized
[4]The Art of the Merger: The Museum of Modern Art and PS1hbs.edu
MoMA’s organizational relationship with P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center developed into the MoMA PS1 affiliation.
1941
The Starry Night enters the collection
[6]The Starry Night enters the collectiontheartstory.org
MoMA acquired Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night through the Paul Rosenberg Gallery.
1929
Museum founded and opened
[1]Museum of Modern Arten.wikipedia.org
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan established MoMA, which opened in temporary New York premises during the same year.

Products and positioning

A globally influential nonprofit museum presenting modern and contemporary art through collection stewardship, exhibitions, scholarship, education, film, design, and public programming.

Collection · 1929
Permanent collection
MoMA’s collection contains almost 200,000 works from around the world, spanning painting, sculpture, drawing, prints, photography, architecture, design, film, electronic media, performance, and artists’ books. It is presented through rotating collection galleries and digital resources rather than as a fixed display. The collection has historically been influential in shaping public understandings of modernism and continues to expand toward broader geographic, social, and media representation.
Exhibitions · 1929
Temporary exhibitions
MoMA organizes changing exhibitions devoted to individual artists, artistic movements, media, historical subjects, and contemporary practice. These exhibitions combine loans, collection works, research, interpretation, and public programming. They are a central way the museum introduces new scholarship and connects its historical holdings with current debates in art and culture.
Film and media · 1935
Film and media programs
The museum’s film and media activities extend its collecting and exhibition mission beyond objects traditionally shown in galleries. Screenings, restorations, moving-image acquisitions, digital works, and related talks preserve experimental and mainstream cinema as part of modern and contemporary cultural history. The 2023 Ken Jacobs acquisition illustrates MoMA’s role as an institutional repository for avant-garde film.
Education · 1929
Education and public programs
MoMA offers educational resources, lectures, conversations, courses, family activities, research access, and other public programs. These services interpret the collection and exhibitions for different audiences, including students, teachers, families, members, researchers, and visitors encountering modern art for the first time.
Contemporary art venue · 2000
MoMA PS1
MoMA PS1 is MoMA’s affiliated contemporary art venue in Queens. Its program emphasizes experimental, emerging, and living artists, site-responsive projects, performance, and interdisciplinary work. The affiliation gives MoMA a separate platform for practices that may not fit conventional collection-gallery formats.

Marketing campaigns

2021The MoMA Experience
United States
A student-created print campaign presented MoMA as an energetic and active viewing experience rather than a passive encounter with art.
Outcome. The work was published as a student advertising campaign; no commercial performance is reported.
Source
2019A new MoMA
New York City and wider United States
MoMA used a temporary identity and a typography- and color-led advertising system to announce its reopening after expansion. The campaign appeared on public transportation, billboards, screens, and in print, using artists’ voices and themes of transformation and the future.
Outcome. The campaign supported the museum’s fall 2019 reopening and repositioned the expanded institution around change and discovery.
Source
2013I Went to MoMA and…
United States
MoMA presented membership and communications work built around visitor participation, creativity, and play, as discussed by chief communications officer Kim Mitchell in an arts-marketing presentation.
Outcome. The source presents the campaign as a notable example of museum membership marketing but does not give quantified results.
Source
2009MoMA mobile membership campaign
United States
MoMA used print, outdoor advertising, newspaper and magazine placements, coffee sleeves, and mobile messaging to encourage museum visitors and prospective supporters to join as members.
Outcome. The supplied report describes the campaign’s lead-generation and conversion objectives but does not provide a measured outcome.
Source

Brand decisions

2019
Reinstallation and expansion of the museumStrategy
Background
The museum sought more gallery capacity and a collection presentation that could show a wider range of works and narratives.
Action taken
MoMA expanded and renovated its building and reopened with a substantially revised presentation of its collection.
Aftermath
The new layout supported more rotating displays and positioned the museum as a place where repeat visits could produce different discoveries.
Source
2000
Formal affiliation with P.S.1M&A
Background
MoMA and P.S.1 developed an organizational relationship that addressed the different strategic roles of a large collecting museum and an experimental contemporary-art center.
Action taken
The relationship was formalized and P.S.1 became known as MoMA PS1 while retaining a distinctive Queens-based program.
Aftermath
The affiliation expanded MoMA’s contemporary-art reach and created a separate platform for experimental practices.
Source

Sources10 sources

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