Alfred H. Barr, Jr.

Alfred Hamilton Barr, Jr. ( born January 28, 1902 in Detroit, † August 15 1981 in Salisbury, Connecticut, United States) was an American art historian and founding director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Life and work

Barr studied from 1918 to 1923 at Princeton University, medieval and modern art history and archeology. After graduating, he took a trip to Europe in 1924. From 1927 he taught at Wellesley College. He was the first brought into the U.S. architecture, graphic design, photography, music and film in the context of painting and sculpture. In April 1927, he organized an exhibition of modern painting in the Farnsworth Museum in Wellesley.

Then Barr went back to Europe, where he remained for a year. After a stay in London he visited Rotterdam, where he architects JJP Oud met and the collection of Kröller-Müller visited. In Germany, he made ​​the acquaintance of Oskar Schlemmer, and Lyonel Feininger. A special influence exercised a visit to the Bauhaus Dessau, the Folkwang Museum in Essen and the new division of the National Gallery in the Crown Prince's Palace in Berlin on him. In Dessau, Barr et al learned Walter Gropius, Paul Klee, László Moholy -Nagy, Oskar Schlemmer, Josef Albers and Lyonel Feininger know. Further stations were Moscow, Leningrad and Paris.

In June 1929 commissioned Paul J. Sachs, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, after consultation with, Lillie P. Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan ( 1877-1939 ), Alfred Barr, a Museum of Modern Art in New York to set up. He became the first director of the Museum of Modern Art, which he built on the model of the Berlin Kronprinzenpalais.

Stephen C. Clark, Chairman of the Board and also the President of the Museum, Barr announced in October 1943 that he was relieved of his previous functions and halving his salary from now on only advisory director ( advisory director). In a press release, Clark said, Barr will devote himself to writing books about modern art in the future. Barr's secretary Dorothy Miller suspected that Clark suffered no one who had more art appreciation Himself. Until 1967, Barr practiced but as scientific director of further strong influence on the museum.

In Bel -Ami Competition ( Bel Ami International Art Competition ) in 1945/ 46 for the American film The Private Affairs of Bel Ami, in which twelve artists should paint a picture of the Temptation of St. Anthony, Barr was with the artist Marcel Duchamp and the gallery owner Sidney Janis (1896-1989) Member of the jury.