Inventing a modern sculpture garden in 1939 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York

Author

Beneš, Mirka

Document type

Article (journal)

Language

English

Source

Landscape journal. 1994, Num. 1, Vol. 13, 1-2 0, 19 ill.; plans

ISSN

0277-2426

Abstract (en)

The sculpture garden built in 1939 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York by the museum's director, Alfred H. Barr, and its curator of architecture, John McAndrew, was the first modernist garden designed to belong to a museum dedicated solely to the display of modern painting and sculpture. The article analyzes the history and the process of design, the formal qualities of the design itself, and the ways that Barr and McAndrew went about conceptualizing the project at hand. Foremost in their thinking were curatorial concerns and contemporary European museological trends that considered it daring to take modern sculpture and display it outdoors. However, they were also determined to provide a modernist garden for one of America's significant modernist buildings of the time. This first sculpture garden was altered in 1942 and replaced by Philip C. Johnson's sculpture court in 1953, for which it laid fundamental conceptual groundwork. A brief epilogue considers Johnson's very different elaboration of Barr's and McAndrew's typological contribution.

Subject (en)

• General history of art -- 1800-1945 -- Architecture -- Gardens -- United States
• Museum of Modern Art||New York (NY, USA)
• Gardens
• Sculpture gardens
• 1939-1953
• Barr, Alfred Hamilton, 1902-1981
• Open-air sculpture
• Collections
• United States
• Museums

Subject (fr)

• Histoire générale de l'art -- 1800-1945 -- Architecture -- Jardins -- États-Unis
• Museum of Modern Art||New York (NY, USA)
• Jardin
• Jardin de sculptures
• 1939-1953
• Barr, Alfred Hamilton, 1902-1981
• Sculpture de plein air
• Collections
• Etats-Unis
• Musée

Origin

DatabaseBHA (Inist-CNRS/GRI)

Identifier19941001-00347626

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