MoMA
Posts by Christina Eliopoulos
June 22, 2016  |  Intern Chronicles
In Search of MoMA’s “Lost” History: Uncovering Efforts to Rescue Artists and Their Patrons
Photograph taken on the occasion of the exhibition Artists in Exile, Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, March 1942. First row, left to right: Matta Echaurren, Ossip Zadkine, Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Fernand Léger; second row: André Breton, Piet Mondrian, André Masson, Amédee Ozenfant, Jacques Lipchitz, Pavel Tchelitchew, Kurt Seligmann, Eugene Berman. A number of these artists were aided by the Museum.  Photo: George Platt Lynes. Photographic Archive. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York

Photograph taken on the occasion of the exhibition Artists in Exile, Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, March 1942. First row, left to right: Matta Echaurren, Ossip Zadkine, Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Fernand Léger; second row: André Breton, Piet Mondrian, André Masson, Amédee Ozenfant, Jacques Lipchitz, Pavel Tchelitchew, Kurt Seligmann, Eugene Berman. A number of these artists were aided by the Museum.  Photo: George Platt Lynes. Photographic Archive. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York

During WWII, The Museum of Modern Art played an integral role in assisting artists, art historians, dealers, and their immediate families in escaping from Europe to America. After the fall of Paris to the Nazis in June 1940 the Museum began to receive numerous requests for help to flee to the U.S.

April 28, 2015  |  Intern Chronicles
Archives on Display: Activating the Past, Challenging the Present
Hrair Sarkissian. istory. 2011. Archival inkjet print, 150 x 190 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Kalfayan Galleries, Athens – Thessaloniki

Hrair Sarkissian. istory. 2011. Archival inkjet print, 150 x 190 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Kalfayan Galleries, Athens – Thessaloniki

As an intern in the MoMA Archives, my favorite part of the day is paging through the material that our researchers have requested. Though pulling document files doesn’t seem like the most exciting task in the world, it is for me, because it’s the exact moment when archives come alive. Sitting in the stacks in hundreds of archival boxes, these documents are inactive forces of potential energy waiting to be picked up.