Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern
MoMA, New York
November 17, 2024 – March 29, 2025
The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York
1001 Park Avenue, c. 1929–1931
The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York
“The Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934.”
May 14, 1934 – September 12, 1934
The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York
on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York
from November 17, 2024, through March 29, 2025
Photo: Emile Askey
The Museum of Modern Art presents Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern, an exhibition focusing on the collection and legacy of LILLIE P. BLISS, one of the Museum’s three founders and an early advocate for modern art in the United States. The exhibition which marks the 90th anniversary of Bliss’s bequest coming to MoMA, includes iconic works such as Paul Cézanne’s The Bather (c. 1885) and Amedeo Modigliani’s Anna Zborowska (1917). The exhibition, which features about 40 works as well as archival materials, highlights Bliss’s critical role in the reception of modern art in the US and in the founding of MoMA.
The Bather. c. 1885
Oil on canvas. 50 x 38 1/8″ (127 x 96.8 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934
Conservation was made possible by the Bank of America
Art Conservation Project
Photo: John Wronn
Anna Zborowska. 1917
Oil on canvas. 51 1/4 x 32″ (130.2 x 81.3 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934
Photo: John Wronn
When it opened in 1929, The Museum of Modem Art was a destination where visitors could see groundbreaking temporary exhibitions, but it did not have a significant collection. Just two years later, when Lillie P. Bliss died, she left approximately 120 works to the Museum in her will. In an effort to ensure the Museum's future success, Bliss stipulated that MoMA would receive her collection only if it could prove that it was on firm financial footing within three years of her death.
In 1934 the Museum was able to secure the bequest, which became the core of MoMA's collection. This included key works by Paul Cézanne, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Odilon Redon, Marie Laurencin, and Henri Matisse, as well as a selection of paintings by Bliss's friend, the American artist Arthur B. Davies.
Port-en-Bessin, Entrance to the Harbor. 1888
Oil on canvas. 21 5/8 x 25 5/8″ (54.9 x 65.1 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934
Silence. c. 1911
Oil on prepared paper. 21 1/2 x 21 1/4″ (54.6 x 54 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934
Bliss's bequest also allowed for the sale of her works to fund new acquisitions, facilitating the purchase of many important artworks, including Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night, which is featured in the exhibition. Other favorites wholly or in part funded through the Bliss bequest, such as Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans, are on view in the collection galleries.
The Starry Night. Saint Rémy, June 1889
Oil on canvas. 29 x 36 1/4″ (73.7 x 92.1 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (by exchange), 1941
Conservation was made possible by the Bank of America
Art Conservation Project
Photo: Jonathan Muzikar
At the end of her life, Lillie P. instructed her bother Cornelius Newton Bliss Jr. to burn her personal papers, making it challenging for future generations to recognize the essential part she played in the history of modern art. The exhibition showcases archival materials from MoMA's Archives and other collection, reconstructing Bliss's life before MoMA, including her passion for music, her involment in the Armory Show of 1913, and her interactions with fellow collectors and artists. It also highlight Bliss's critical role in MoMA's founding, and her continued impact on the Museum going forward, through scrapbooks, journals, photographs, and letters.
"It has been a joy to explore the life and work of this courageous woman whom we have known as little more than an important name. We are eager to share our discoveries, and to shine a spotlight on Lillie Bliss for the first time since 1934, when MoMA organized an exhibition to celebrate the new bequest," says Ann Temkin.
Untold Stories of the Women Who Shaped The Museum of Modern Art
by Romy Silver-Kohn (Editor), Ann Temkin (Editor),
Anna Deavere Smith (Foreword by),
Mary Schmidt Campbell (Text by), Sloane Crosley (Text by)
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, 2024
384 p. - ISBN 9781633450790
The exhibition is presented on the occasion of the release of Inventing the Modem: Untold Stories of the Women Who Shaped The Museum of Modem Art, a revelatory account of the Museum's earliest years told through newly commissioned profiles of 14 women who had a decisive impact on the formation and development of the institution. Inventing the Modem comprises illuminating new essays on the women who, as founders, curators, patrons, and directors of various departments, made enduring contributions to MoMA during its early decades (especially between 1929 and 1945), creating new models for how to envision, establish, and operate a museum in an era when the field of modem art was uncharted territory.
Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern is organized by Ann Temkin, The Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, and Romy Silver-Kohn, co-editor with Ann Temkin of Inventing the Modern: Untold Stories of the Women Who Shaped The Museum of Modern Art, with Rachel Remick, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture.
MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, New York
11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019
