"QUALITY should be and has been by far the most important criterion for acquisitions. But quality is relative and debatable — a truism, though essential. You cannot fairly judge a romantic landscape by cubist standards; Edward Hopper is not in the same boat with Paul Klee; nor Orozco with Vuillard. Matisse sets out to please; Rouault to convert or pity; Dali to shock; Grosz to express loathing; Mondrian to divide a rectangle beautifully; Blume to summarize a world crisis; Burchfield to tell his nostalgia; Duchamp to mystify..." Notes on Museum Collection Policy. 1944. Alfred H. Barr Jr.