Alfred H. Barr, Jr.

Who was Alfred H. Barr, Jr.?

Alfred Hamilton Barr, Jr., known as Alfred H. Barr, Jr., was an American art historian and the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. From that position, he was one of the most influential forces in the development of popular attitudes toward modern art; for example, his arranging of the blockbuster Van Gogh exhibition of 1935, in the words of author Bernice Kert, was "a precursor to the hold Van Gogh has to this day on the contemporary imagination."