Museum of modern art

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Neue Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, designed by Sir James Stirling, featuring tan stone walls, a slanted green-framed glass window, and colorful blue and pink railings.

Herzog & de Meuron: Tate Modern

Learn about Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and the creation of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

Art Institute of Chicago

Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, designed by Arata Isozaki

Viewer observing Claude Monet's Water Lilies

Miroslaw Balka's installation How It Is, a massive steel rectangular structure elevated on legs, dominates the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern as visitors walk nearby.

Related Questions

How can museums of modern art use thematic exhibitions to tell different stories about art?
How did Alfred H. Barr, Jr., view the role of a modern art museum?
How did Barr's diagram place Cubism within the history of modern art?
How did Philip Johnson change the Museum of Modern Art building?
How did the 2004 redesign change the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition and public spaces?
How did the Museum of Modern Art change ideas about which objects could be displayed as art?
How did the Museum of Modern Art help introduce Modernism to the United States?
How did the Museum of Modern Art influence other museums of modern art around the world?
How did the Museum of Modern Art's 2019 expansion change the display of its collection?
How did the Museum of Modern Art's 2019 rehang address diversity in its collection displays?
How did the Musée du Luxembourg help establish the idea of a museum for modern art?
How did the Neue Pinakothek define modern painting in the 19th century?
What objects were displayed in the Museum of Modern Art's 1934 Machine Art exhibition?
What was the purpose of Alfred H. Barr, Jr.'s diagram in the Cubism and Abstract Art exhibition catalog?
When did the Museum of Modern Art establish its architecture department?
When did the Museum of Modern Art establish its photography department?
When was the Museum of Modern Art in New York City founded?
Which art movements are especially well represented in the Museum of Modern Art collection?
Which artists were featured in the Museum of Modern Art's opening exhibition?
Which kinds of art did the Museum of Modern Art collect besides painting and sculpture?
Which three trustees provided crucial early support for the Museum of Modern Art?
Which unusual objects caused public reactions at the Museum of Modern Art during Barr's directorship?
Who curated the Museum of Modern Art exhibition Machine Art?
Who designed the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden at the Museum of Modern Art?
Who designed the Museum of Modern Art's 2004 expansion and reconfiguration?
Who designed the Museum of Modern Art's permanent building that opened in 1939?
Who organized the Museum of Modern Art's 1932 Modern Architecture: International Exhibition?
Who was Alfred H. Barr, Jr., and how did he shape the Museum of Modern Art?
Why did the Museum of Modern Art display industrially designed objects such as faucets and boat propellers?
Why did the Museum of Modern Art move away from arranging art only by chronology or medium in 2019?
Why do museums need to control light humidity and temperature when displaying artworks?
Why have critics questioned Alfred H. Barr, Jr.'s diagram of avant-garde art?
Why is Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon important to the Museum of Modern Art?
Why was the Museum of Modern Art's Vincent van Gogh exhibition of 1935–36 significant?

Neue Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, designed by Sir James Stirling, featuring tan stone walls, a slanted green-framed glass window, and colorful blue and pink railings. — New State Gallery (Neue Staatsgalerie) The New State Gallery (Neue Staatsgalerie), Stuttgart, Germany, designed by James Stirling, completed in 1984.

Museum of modern art

art institution

Written by

Glenn D. Lowry

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Nov. 8, 2026 •History

Museum of modern art, an institution devoted to the collection, display, interpretation, and preservation of “avant-garde” or “progressive” art of the late 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. (Read Glenn Lowry’s Britannica essay on “Art Museums & Their Digital Future.”) Museums of modern art, as they are understood today, owe their origins to the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris. Designated by Louis XVIII in 1818 as a venue for the collection and display of the work...

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