Alfred Barr was the founder of the Museum of Modern Art. “Even now, thirty-six years after he retired and more than twenty years after he died at seventy-nine (he)remains a figure of fascination and contention. No one had a more profound effect on the direction of American museums over the last three quarters of a century, and no museum director or curator, or anyone else for that matter, except perhaps the artists themselves, did more to shape the national perception and discussion of art in the twentieth century.”