MoMA goes to Washington

Abstract

In this vignette of a little‐known phase in the annals of American art museums, Jesús‐Pedro Lorente recalls the short‐lived (1937–39) Washington outpost of New York's famous Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). More than a simple footnote to history, the story provides a glimpse of the past that invites reflection on why museums ‘wax and wane’. The author is a lecturer in the Department of the History of Art at the University of Zaragoza (Saragossa), Spain, and the author of Cathedrals of Urban Modernity. The First Museums of Contemporary Art, 1800–1930, published in 1998.