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Taken of the Museum's inaugural exhibition
Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, van Gogh (MoMA Exh. #1,
November 7-December 7, 1929), these photographs document the installation
at the Museum's first location, the twelfth floor of the Heckscher
Building, 730 Fifth Avenue at the corner of 57th Street. The exhibition,
consisting entirely of loans, attracted 47,293 visitors. From Cézanne,
Gauguin, Seurat, van Gogh, the Museum was to eventually receive
for its permanent collection, either by gift or bequest, eight masterpieces
including Cézanne's Still Life with Apples (1895-98),
Gauguin's Portrait of Meyer de Haan (1889) and van Gogh's
Hospital Corridor at Saint-Rémy (1889).
The photographs, and the envelope in which they were placed, belonged
to Jsreal Ben (J. B.) Neumann, an eminent art dealer, critic, author,
publisher, and good friend of founding Director of The Museum of
Modern Art, Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Neumann moved to New York City from
Germany in 1923, where a year later he opened a gallery and meeting
spot which would eventually be called the New Art Circle. There
he championed progressive living artists including Wassily Kandinsky,
Max Beckmann, Paul Klee, and Georges Rouault, among others. He and
Barr first became acquainted in 1924. Neumann lent work from his
gallery to an exhibition Barr organized that year at Vassar College,
where he was briefly an instructor in the history of art. The note
scrawled on the envelope in Neumann's hand reads, "first show of
the Museum of Modern Art which I helped to hang." Barr would eventually
purchase works of art from Neumann's gallery for The Museum of Modern
Art's collection.
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J.B. Neumann Envelope.
The Museum of Modern Art Archives, NY: J. B. Neumann Papers,
VII.C |
Pictured above, from left to right:
Installation photograph of the
Museum's first exhibition, 1929.
Left to right: Paul Cézanne, Gardanne (c. 1885); Paul Gauguin, The
Bathers (1898); Vincent van Gogh, The Ravine (1889); Paul Gauguin,
Breton Landscape (n.d.); Paul Gauguin, Breton Children (n.d.); Paul
Cézanne, Self Portrait (n.d.); Paul Gauguin, Women of Arles (1888);
Vincent van Gogh, Cypresses (1889); Paul Gauguin, Portrait of Meyer
de Haan (1889). The Museum of Modern Art Archives, NY: J. B. Neumann
Papers, VII.C
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