alfred barr

Barr is arguably the catalyst for the American public's acceptance of and enthusiasm for modern art in the latter half of the 20th century. His work with The Museum of Modern Art helped secure modern art's place as an institution, rather than just a fleeting trend. Art historian and critic Thomas B. Hess once praised the work of Barr, and stated he was a man "whose taste and knowledge has set an international example to all who are interested in the fields of modern art."

One of Barr's more ambitious goals was to help establish a permanent collection at MoMA, to which the Museum's Board of Trustees finally agreed in 1953. Barr saw a permanent collection at MoMA as something that would secure modern art's place in the annals of Art History, and would finally make the Museum what he intended it to be from the beginning: a home to the greatest collection of modern art in the world. The works he selected for display at MoMA by artists such as Picasso, Matisse, van Gogh, Cézanne, and Gauguin (many of whom are in the Museum's permanent collection today), eventually formed the canon of modern art history.

Among his greatest innovations was the establishment of six different curatorial departments at MoMA: Painting and Sculpture, Drawings, Prints and Illustrated Books, Film, Photography, and Architecture and Design.

Barr may or may not have coined the term "International Style" for a movement in modern, Bauhaus-influenced architecture made popular by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson. Some have attributed the term's origin to the architects rather than Barr.

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