Three collectors
The Museum of Modern Art was conceived in 1929 by three patrons of the arts: Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan. Alfred H. Barr Jr. became its first director.
Opening in hard times
The museum opened on 7 November 1929, nine days after the Wall Street Crash, in rented rooms on the 12th floor of the Heckscher Building at 730 Fifth Avenue. Ten years later, on 10 May 1939, it opened its own building on West 53rd Street.
A founder’s gift
A founder’s legacy shaped the collection: through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest, MoMA acquired Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night in 1941, a painting he made in June 1889 at the asylum of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.



