MoMA: A Deep Dive
A single great museum deserves more than a paragraph. The deep dive below covers the building's history, the structure of the collection, the canonical works, the lesser-visited highlights, and a practical visiting strategy.
Founding 1929
MoMA was founded in 1929 by three women — Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan — to create New York's first museum dedicated entirely to modern art. The first exhibition opened nine days after the Wall Street Crash.
Five expansions
The original 1939 Philip Goodwin / Edward Durell Stone building has been expanded by Cesar Pelli (1984), Yoshio Taniguchi (2004), and Diller Scofidio + Renfro (2019). The 2019 expansion added 40,000 square feet of gallery and integrated the former American Folk Art Museum site.
Iconic works
Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907); Van Gogh's The Starry Night (1889); Matisse's Dance (I, 1909); Pollock's One: Number 31, 1950; Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans (1962); Dalí's The Persistence of Memory (1931); Rousseau's The Sleeping Gypsy (1897); Klimt's Hope, II (1907-08).
Department structure
Six curatorial departments: Painting and Sculpture; Architecture and Design; Drawings and Prints; Photography; Film; Media and Performance Art.
Photography collection
Founded 1940 by Beaumont Newhall and shaped by Edward Steichen, John Szarkowski, and Peter Galassi, MoMA's photography department holds the canonical history of the medium from Atget to today.
Architecture and Design
MoMA's A&D department holds the canonical twentieth-century design objects — the Aalto stool, the Eames lounge, the Rietveld Red Blue Chair — and operates the Good Design programme.
Film
MoMA's film archive holds 30,000 titles. The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters screen the collection daily.
PS1 Long Island City
MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, since 2000 part of MoMA, holds contemporary exhibitions in a former school building. Warm Up summer concert series.
2019 rehang
The 2019 reopening rehung the permanent collection to incorporate previously marginal voices — particularly women artists and non-Western modernisms — and to rotate works more frequently. The change remains an active conversation.
Visiting strategy
Timed entry; book ahead. Free admission on UNIQLO Free Friday Nights (4-8pm). Open daily.
A great museum is never fully absorbed in a single visit. Plan return visits, vary the time of day, and rotate between the canonical and the lesser-known galleries.
Where will you go first?
Pin every institution mentioned above using the interactive map — filter by country, collection type, or admission policy to plan a realistic itinerary.