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

497 Pages·2003·2.46 MB·English

by  Sybil Gordon Kantor

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Barr fervently believed in an aesthetic based on the bo “This truly significant book is at times as compulsively readable al Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Alfred H. Barr, Jr.
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intrinsic traits of a work of art and the materials and k a as a novel. Yet the spell that the author casts does not come at O
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techniques involved in its creation. Kantor shows how d the expense of rigorous argument backed up by exhaustive pri- r
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whose collections, exhibitions, and publications all esign b Smith College of the Museum of Modern Art the Museum of Modern Art
expressed Barr’s vision. At the same time, she shows y Je th
how Barr’s ability to reconcile classical objectivity and a “A worthy contribution to the literature. Kantor’s book is the e
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mythic irrationality allowed him to perceive modernism W most detailed and revelatory account of Barr’s approach to M
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as an open-ended phenomenon that expanded beyond ox modern art ever published.” u
s Growing up with the twentieth century, Alfred Barr
purist abstract modernism to include surrealist, national- Francis M. Naumann, author of Marcel Duchamp: e Sybil Gordon Kantor
u (1902–1981), founding director of the Museum of
ist, realist, and expressionist art. The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction m
Modern Art, harnessed the cataclysm that was mod-

Drawing on interviews with Barr’s contemporaries as The MIT Press o
ernism. In this book—part intellectual biography, part
well as on Barr’s extensive correspondence, Kantor also Massachusetts Institute of Technology “At last, Alfred Barr’s towering stature as scholarly art histori- f
M institutional history—Sybil Gordon Kantor tells the
paints vivid portraits of, among others, Jere Abbott, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 an, evangelical educator, and visionary museum director has
o story of the rise of modern art in America and of the
Katherine Dreier, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Philip John- http://mitpress.mit.edu been given its due. Meticulously documented, Kantor’s study d
e man responsible for its triumph. Following the trajecto-
son, Lincoln Kirstein, Agnes Mongan, J. B. Neumann, recreates not only the formation, step by step, of Barr’s unique r
n ry of Barr’s career from the 1920s through the 1940s,
and Paul Sachs. 0-262-11258-2 genius but also the audacious intellectual milieu of the 1920s
A Kantor penetrates the myths, both positive and nega-
Sybil Gordon Kantor is an independent scholar living ,!7IA2G2-bbcfib!:t;K;k;K;k that nurtured it.” rt tive, that surround Barr and his achievements.
in Columbus, Ohio, and Lugano, Switzerland. Robert Rosenblum, Professor of Fine Arts, New York University
Alfred H. Barr, Jr.
and the Intellectual Origins of
the Museum of Modern Art
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
Alfred H. Barr, Jr.
and the Intellectual Origins of
the Museum of Modern Art
Sybil Gordon Kantor
© 2002 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic
or mechanical means (includi’ng photocopying, recording, or information storage and re-
trieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book was set in Futura by Graphic Composition, Inc., Athens, Georgia, and was printed
and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kantor, Sybil Gordon.
Alfred H. Barr, Jr., and the intellectual origins of the Museum of Modern Art / Sybil
Gordon Kantor.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN0-262-11258-2 (hc.: alk. paper)
1. Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)—History. 2. Barr, Alfred Hamilton, 1902–
3. Art museum directors—United States—Biography. I. Title.
N620.M9 K36 2001
708’.147’1—dc21
2001044034M
frontispiece: Jay Leyda, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., New York, 1931–1933. Gelatin silver print,
4 3/4 (cid:2)3 5/8 in. (12.1 (cid:2)9.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Gift of the pho-
tographer.
For Marvin,
whose fellowship, in every sense of the word, has sustained me
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations x
Acknowledgments xiv
Preface xviii
Prologue KNOWING ALFRED BARR 2
Chapter 1 THE PRINCETON YEARS 18
Morey as Mentor
Barr and Mather
Barr Moves On to Vassar
Barr’s Incipient Interest in Modernism
Harvard versus Princeton
Chapter 2 THE FOGG METHOD AND PAUL J. SACHS:
BARR AND HIS HARVARD MENTOR 36
Norton, the Father of Art History
Kirstein the Student, Ruskin the Critic
Initiation of Formalism at Harvard
The Contribution of Berenson
Professors of the Fogg Method
The Fogg Museum
Sachs, the Associate Director
The Old Boy Network
The Museum Course
Barr Lectures on Modern Art
Barr’s Oral Exams
Chapter 3 BARR AS TEACHER, 1925 TO 1927 86
First Teaching Job
Barr Proposes the First Course on Modern Art
Barr and J.B. Neumann
An Embarrassing Public Lecture
Vanity Fairas a Source of Modernism
Barr Delivers the First Course in Modernism
Patrons of Modernism
Barr’s First Modern Exhibition
Chapter 4 THE LITTLE MAGAZINE AND MODERNISM AT HARVARD 122
The Prodigious Lincoln Kirstein
The Expatriates
Hound & Horn
The Dial
Ezra Pound
Malcolm Cowley
Matthew Josephson
Hound & Hornand the Visual
Chapter 5 THE EUROPEAN TRIP 146
Barr Joins the Rebels in Europe
Research in England
Barr and Neumann
Holland, Then Germany
The Bauhaus School
Two Months in Moscow, 1927–1928
Icons
The LEF
Eisenstein
Rodchenko
Kino
VKhUTEMAS
Lissitzky
Tatlin
Leningrad and Beyond
Back at Wellesley
Into the Future
Chapter 6 MODERNISM TAKES ITS TURN IN AMERICA 190
Important Precedents
The Harvard Society for Contemporary Art
The Museum of Modern Art Is Launched
The Multimedia Museum
The First Modern Museum Appears in Hartford
Kirstein Renounces Modernism
American Artists Find Their Champion
The Museum Reaches a Milestone
Chapter 7 ARCHITECTURE, BARR, AND HENRY-RUSSELL HITCHCOCK 242
Hitchcock the Historian
The Influence of Le Corbusier the Rationalist
Functionalism versus Architecture as Art
Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus
Hitchcock’s Writings
Barr’s Writings
Hitchcock’s Appreciation of Oud
The Russians
Hitchcock’s First Magnum Opus
Painting toward Architecture
General Principles of the New Style Established
Barr’s Review of Hitchcock’s Book
Chapter 8 PHILIP JOHNSON AND BARR:
ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN ENTER THE MUSEUM 276
Johnson and Barr
Johnson and Hitchcock
Johnson and Mies
The International Style
Style versus Functionalism
The Exhibition and Its Catalogue
Industrial Design
The “Machine Art” Exhibition
The 1938 Bauhaus Exhibition
The Role of Architecture
Chapter 9 THE DIRECTORSHIP AT FULL THROTTLE 314
“Cubism and Abstract Art”
Kahnweiler’s Precedent
Barr Paves the Way for Greenberg
The Chart: Modernism in Time and Space
Collision with Meyer Schapiro
Cubism into Architecture
Pluralism
Surrealism
Picasso, 1939
Matisse
Barr’s Hidden Agenda
EPILOGUE 354
Barr’s Battle with the Trustees
Fired
Barr’s Tenacity
The New Director
Building the Collection
Notes 378
Illustration Credits 460
Index 462