A number of notable individuals began their relationship with MoMA not as noteworthy artists and established personalities, but as conventional Museum employees. To name a few: actress Kathy Bates was a cashier in the MoMA Stores; artist Allan McCollum was hired as a preparator for the Museum’s 1980 Picasso retrospective; writer and poet Frank O’Hara curated exhibitions, mainly for circulation, at the Museum in the 1950s and 1960s; photographer Edward Steichen served as the director of the Museum’s Department of Photography from 1947 to 1961; and filmmaker Luis Buñuel worked under contract with the Museum on its Latin American Project in the early 1940s. Read more

In 1929, three women, Lillie P. Bliss, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and Mary Quinn Sullivan, joined forces to establish a museum based in New York City that was devoted exclusively to modern art. Over the course of the next 15 years, over one and a half million visitors paid their respects to the result of their efforts: The Museum of Modern Art. As it turns out, a tiny percentage of these visitors are memorialized in a leather-bound guest register that was brought out by Museum staffers for only its most illustrious guests to sign. The guest book, which now resides in our Archives, is a fascinating document from MoMA’s fledgling years and serves as a reminder of the appeal of the Museum to well-known figures from a wide range of social, professional, and cultural backgrounds. Read more

In previous posts we’ve showcased exhibition and wayfinding graphic developments and looked at interesting ephemera created by the Graphic Design department throughout MoMA’s past. This post is about a much more humble, but extremely important, type of design: the warning sign. These signs are created for a wide range of purposes—to prevent overcrowding in the galleries, to prevent damage to the artwork or Museum spaces, to alert people about potentially controversial artworks in the galleries, etc.—and they represent a collaboration between Graphic Design and the Curatorial, Legal, Visitor Services, and/or Education departments. Some signs, such as room-capacity notices, are required by law; others, such as the “warning” notices at the entrance to the Marina Abramović exhibition, are more of a courtesy. They all have one thing in common: they’re designed to make sure each guest has a safe and fun time at MoMA. The slide show above includes just a few of the signs we’ve made over the years. Enjoy… at your own risk!

At the MoMA Library we recently unearthed an intriguing box of ephemera by artist Ad Reinhardt (1913-1967). The material was gifted to the Library by Walter and Nettie Wittman, who were friends of the artist. The letters, photographs, tear sheets, and some original commercial illustrations form a vignette of the artist’s professional and personal life, glimpsed from the perspective of Mr. Wittman, a lawyer residing in New Jersey.

Reinhardt and Walter Wittman met as students at Columbia University. We get a taste of their initial friendship with a 1931 notebook page documenting Reinhardt’s translation efforts in freshman German class (“In paradise what have I to do win?”) Read more