In case you have been in a Trappist monastery for the last month, the Museum of Modern Art in New York has reopened, greatly enlarged and re-displayed. The museum pruned its collection in recent years, selling works by Tiffany, Picasso, de Chirico, Pollock, and de Kooning among others to amass funds for expanding and upgrading the collection. Combined with gifts and the trustees’ newly created Fund for the 21st Century, which focuses on work made in the last five years by artists not yet represented in the collection, the museum has accelerated its buying even while spending hundreds of millions to construct its new building. Here is a selection of what has been acquired since 2001.
photo caption; New acquisitions, clockwise: 1. Josef Hoffmann, Sitzmaschine chair with adjustable back (model 670), designed around 1905; 2. Eve Sussman, “89 Seconds at Alcázar”, 2004; 3. Christian Marclay, Untitled, 1999; 4. Gordon Matta-Clark, “Bingo”, 1974; 5. Jeff Wall, “After Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue”, 2001
The money and the people that rebuilt MoMA
MoMA’s board of trustees is often said to be the most powerful of any museum in the world, and in the US when people speak of “power” what they really mean is “money”. Of the campaign target of $858 million, more than $700 million has been raised since 1998, and MoMA’s trustees contributed more than half a billion dollars, with six alone pitching in around $250 million between them. The City of New York allocated its largest capital grant ever to a cultural organisation, $65 million, and the museum secured another $300 million in tax-exempt bonds that it will be repaying for decades. Here is a partial list of patrons, as well as corporations that donated $1 million or more to the campaign.
Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman (named the Education and Research building)
Ronald S. and Jo Carole Lauder (named the renovated 11 West 53rd Street building)
City of New York
David and Peggy Rockefeller (named the new building)
Celeste Bartos (named the new theatre)
Mercedes T. and Sid R. Bass
Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro
Mimi and Peter Haas
Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron (named the atrium of the new building)
Robert and Joyce Menschel Family Foundation
Edward John Noble Foundation (named the Education and Research Centre)
Joan and Preston Robert Tisch
Debra and Leon Black
Kathy and Richard S. Fuld, Jr
The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art
Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis
State of New York
Estate of Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller
Jerry I. Speyer and Katherine G. Farley
The Annenberg Foundation
Lily Auchincloss
Patti Cadby Birch
Eli and Edythe L. Broad
Mr and Mrs Donald L. Bryant, Jr
Patricia and Gustavo Cisneros
The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art
Leonard Dobbs
Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat
Sol Goldman
The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation
Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr Fund
Veronica Hearst
- Marlene Hess and James D. Zirin
Estée Lauder
Thomas H. Lee and Ann Tenenbaum
Robert Lehman Foundation, Inc
Estate of Grace M. Mayer
Harvey S. Shipley Miller
Mr and Mrs Minoru Mori
Yoshiko and Akio Morita
The Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation
Peter Norton
Maja Oeri and Hans Bodenmann
Michael and Judy Ovitz
Peter G. Peterson
Sharon and John D. Rockefeller IV
Joseph and Sylvia Slifka
Estate of Louise Reinhardt Smith
Emily and Jerry Spiegel
The Starr Foundation
David Teiger
Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III
Gary and Karen Winnick
Anonymous (2)
The Bank of New York and The George Link, Jr Foundation
Danish Design Project
The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.
Ford Motor Company
J. Paul Getty Trust
Goldman Sachs
William Randolph Hearst Foundations
IBM Corporation
JPMorgan Chase
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Mori Building Co, Ltd
The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation
Sony Corporation
Sony Corporation of America
Target Corporation
Time Warner
UBS
USM Modular