"To Ma from David." A young David Rockefeller drew this flower adorned with the poem "Mary Mary quite contrary." His mother, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, preserved the gift in a scrapbook that we, in turn, preserve today in our archival collections.
Image: Scrapbook of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Rockefeller Family collections, RAC.
Archival repository and research center for the study of philanthropy and its effects throughout the world.Research inquiries: archive@rockarch.org
Biography of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
Abby Greene Aldrich Rockefeller was born on October 26, 1874, in Providence, Rhode Island, the fourth child of Abby Pearce Chapman and Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich. Her father served in the state House of Representatives, was Speaker of the House, and served as a U.S. Senator, including as chair of the Senate Finance Committee...
With the founding of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in May 1929, the scope of Abby Rockefeller’s philanthropy widened dramatically. Her aesthetic insight and administrative and personal skills now found their fullest application, and she gained a permanent home for her growing collection of modern art.
Although the idea of establishing a museum dedicated to fostering modern art had been floating about since the celebrated Armory Show of 1913, it was not until Abby began to solicit the advice of her own friends during the winter of 1928-1929 that the idea moved toward realization.
Conversations with art patron Lillie P. Bliss and art collector Mary Quinn Sullivan led to a meeting in May 1929 at which the three women invited A. Conger Goodyear to chair a museum-organizing committee.
In July, Alfred H. Barr, Jr. was appointed director. A seven-member Board of Trustees was elected in October and included Abby Rockefeller, Lillie Bliss, Mary Quinn Sullivan, A. Conger Goodyear, Frank Crowninshield, Josephine Porter Crane, and Paul J. Sachs.
Pablo Picasso was born #OnThisDay in 1881, in Málaga, Spain. Throughout his long career, Picasso became one of the most famous and influential artists of the 20th century. He is best known as a founder of cubism. Nelson Rockefeller created a gallery in the family estate featuring works by notable modern artists, and commissioned tapestries of famed Picasso paintings. In 2015, the San Antonio Museum of Art mounted a major exhibition of fourteen of Nelson Rockefeller's Picasso tapestries.
Image: Pablo Picasso’s tapestry, Night Fishing at Antibes (c. 1950s) displayed at the Rockefeller family estate in Pocantico Hills, New York.
"In the late 1920s, three progressive and influential patrons of the arts, Lillie P. Bliss, Mary Quinn Sullivan, and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, perceived a need to challenge the conservative policies of traditional museums and to establish an institution devoted exclusively to modern art.
They, along with additional original trustees A. Conger Goodyear, Paul Sachs, Frank Crowninshield, and Josephine Boardman Crane, created The Museum of Modern Art in 1929.
Its founding director, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., intended the Museum to be dedicated to helping people understand and enjoy the visual arts of our time, and that it might provide New York with “the greatest museum of modern art in the world.
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The Museum of Modern Art’s collection has grown to approximately 200,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, media and performance art works, architectural models and drawings, design objects, and films.
MoMA also owns approximately two million film stills.
The Museum’s Library and Archives contain the leading concentration of research material on modern art in the world, and each of the curatorial departments maintains a study center available to students, scholars, and researchers.
MoMA’s Library holds over 320,000 items, including books, artists’ books, periodicals, and extensive individual files on more than 90,000 artists.
The Museum Archives contains primary source material related to the history of MoMA and modern and contemporary art."
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