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Picasso's War: How Modern Art Came to America
In January 1939, Pablo Picasso was renowned in Europe but disdained by many in the United States. One year later, Americans across the country were clamoring to see his art. How did the controversial leader of the Paris avant-garde break through to the heart of American culture?
The answer begins a generation earlier, when a renegade Irish American lawyer named John Quinn set out to build the greatest collection of Picassos in existence. His dream of a museum to house them died with him, until it was rediscovered by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., a cultural visionary who, at the age of twenty-seven, became the director of New York’s new Museum of Modern Art.
Barr and Quinn’s shared goal would be thwarted in the years to come—by popular hostility, by the Depression, by Parisian intrigues, and by Picasso himself. It would take Hitler’s campaign against Jews and modern art, and Barr’s fraught alliance with Paul Rosenberg, Picasso’s persecuted dealer, to get Picasso’s most important paintings out of Europe. Mounted in the shadow of war, the groundbreaking exhibition Forty Years of His Art would launch Picasso in America, define MoMA as we know it, and shift the focus of the art world from Paris to New York.
Picasso’s War is the never-before-told story about how a single exhibition, a decade in the making, irrevocably changed American taste, and in doing so saved dozens of the twentieth century’s most enduring artworks from the Nazis. Through a deft combination of new scholarship and vivid storytelling, Hugh Eakin shows how two men and their obsession with Picasso changed the art world forever.
The answer begins a generation earlier, when a renegade Irish American lawyer named John Quinn set out to build the greatest collection of Picassos in existence. His dream of a museum to house them died with him, until it was rediscovered by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., a cultural visionary who, at the age of twenty-seven, became the director of New York’s new Museum of Modern Art.
Barr and Quinn’s shared goal would be thwarted in the years to come—by popular hostility, by the Depression, by Parisian intrigues, and by Picasso himself. It would take Hitler’s campaign against Jews and modern art, and Barr’s fraught alliance with Paul Rosenberg, Picasso’s persecuted dealer, to get Picasso’s most important paintings out of Europe. Mounted in the shadow of war, the groundbreaking exhibition Forty Years of His Art would launch Picasso in America, define MoMA as we know it, and shift the focus of the art world from Paris to New York.
Picasso’s War is the never-before-told story about how a single exhibition, a decade in the making, irrevocably changed American taste, and in doing so saved dozens of the twentieth century’s most enduring artworks from the Nazis. Through a deft combination of new scholarship and vivid storytelling, Hugh Eakin shows how two men and their obsession with Picasso changed the art world forever.
477 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 12, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 169 reviews
January 18, 2023
I'll keep this review short. If you have an interest in 20th Century art or artists, Picasso's War by Hugh Eakin is amazing. It's full of rich history about the post modern art movements and how the art and the artists were received around the world.
Obviously, from the title, the main focus is Picasso and the attempts by the artist, his financial backers, and his dealers to get his art accepted and shown in the United States. It took a world war to make that happen!
The book also gives a detailed history of New York's Museum of Modern Art and its struggles getting started throughout the same time period.
Ok, I said I was going to keep this short. I guess I had a bit more to say than I realized! In conclusion, I am happy to give Picasso's War 4 out of 5 stars. It takes some good writing to keep me fully engaged in a 400-plus page nonfiction book. This one did that and more!
Obviously, from the title, the main focus is Picasso and the attempts by the artist, his financial backers, and his dealers to get his art accepted and shown in the United States. It took a world war to make that happen!
The book also gives a detailed history of New York's Museum of Modern Art and its struggles getting started throughout the same time period.
Ok, I said I was going to keep this short. I guess I had a bit more to say than I realized! In conclusion, I am happy to give Picasso's War 4 out of 5 stars. It takes some good writing to keep me fully engaged in a 400-plus page nonfiction book. This one did that and more!
August 8, 2022
It’s rare for me to give 5 stars to a book, and I generally read fiction, but this book is outstanding. It chronicles the modern art movement from the 1913 Armory Show through the Nazi occupation of Paris. It paints vivid portraits of John Quinn, Paul Rosenberg, Henry Kahnweiler, Albert Barr and Picasso.
August 7, 2022
This excellent book covers the story of the struggle to gain interest and acceptance of modern art in the United States. The title is somewhat misleading, as much of the focus is on two key figures who were not artists. John Quinn, a New York lawyer, amassed a robust collection of post impressionist paintings in the early 20th century, before there was any recognition of its merits in the U.S. At his death, Quinn's collection was sold at auction and much of the work went back to Europe, as there were no American buyers. Years later, Alfred H. Barr is designated as the director of a modern art museum which is struggling to get space and content in New York. His insight and persistence in acquiring great modern art works, for loan or purchase, is detailed in engrossing prose. Many of the works he pursues were part of Quinn's original collection. Eakin also covers the famous Armory show of 1913 and corrects some misperceptions about its reception and impact. He also follows art dealers in Europe who handled works by the intractable Picasso and faced danger and ruin as the Nazis invaded France in World War II. It is a great story, well told and well researched, filled with colorful characters. You learn the complex logistical histories of some of the greatest paintings in MOMA, including Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and The Sleeping Gypsy. Anyone who has admired the masterpieces in NY's MOMA will love this book. It is a gem.
January 16, 2023
Simply fascinating book. The title is a pun, covering both the "war" to get Picasso accepted by philistine Americans, even in NYC, and even on the board of MOMA to put up a Picasso-focused exhibition and buy his paintings, and the Spanish Civil War, which led Picasso to Guernica, which broke the ice.
The first half of the book is also a mini-bio of John Quinn, a man of whom I'd never heard before, and arguably the United States' top pre-1920 acquirer of Picasso, along with many other A-rank modern artists such as Matisse. But, I had heard of the Armory show, of which he was an organizer
There was no MOMA at this time. Quinn pushed for one, using the analogy in Paris of the Luxembourg to the Louvre as a push. Unfortunately, he died of colon cancer in his 50s, in the early 1920s. From there, the book picks up with the eventual creation of MOMA.
Among the ironies is that, 20 years before it was built, Americans were calling Picasso et al, but especially him, "degenerate art," as in exactly the phrase the Nazis used. (Stalin didn't use such a phrase in calling for "Soviet realism," but the idea was there, too. Pre-authoritarianism, Kaiserine and Weimar Germany, and Tsarist Russia, were actually the top two countries in the world, overall, to appreciate modern art pre-WWI, even more than France.)
That's plenty to whet the appetites of any general modern culture lover let alone art history person.
And, illustrated with many plates.
The first half of the book is also a mini-bio of John Quinn, a man of whom I'd never heard before, and arguably the United States' top pre-1920 acquirer of Picasso, along with many other A-rank modern artists such as Matisse. But, I had heard of the Armory show, of which he was an organizer
There was no MOMA at this time. Quinn pushed for one, using the analogy in Paris of the Luxembourg to the Louvre as a push. Unfortunately, he died of colon cancer in his 50s, in the early 1920s. From there, the book picks up with the eventual creation of MOMA.
Among the ironies is that, 20 years before it was built, Americans were calling Picasso et al, but especially him, "degenerate art," as in exactly the phrase the Nazis used. (Stalin didn't use such a phrase in calling for "Soviet realism," but the idea was there, too. Pre-authoritarianism, Kaiserine and Weimar Germany, and Tsarist Russia, were actually the top two countries in the world, overall, to appreciate modern art pre-WWI, even more than France.)
That's plenty to whet the appetites of any general modern culture lover let alone art history person.
And, illustrated with many plates.
November 11, 2022
Thoroughly enjoyable and informative work not so much on Picasso (despite the title) but about the fitful journey of modernism from Europe to America. Through two world wars, the Great Depression and countless movements, advocates, dealers, collectors, patrons and aficionados it went before finally being embraced by Americans. Oddly Picasso is mostly an off-stage presence albeit a crucial one but that takes nothing away from the story or the way Eakin tells it.
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May 6, 2023Book 19
“In offering a first glimpse of the new frontier of modern art, the Picasso exhibition at 291 was a coup.” P 18 - in 1911, curated by Alfred Stieglitz, photographer but also a man known to hold exhibitions of daring new artists - by 1913 “Picasso was not successful or well known enough for Americans” Fernande Olivier, his former lover noted
I really appreciate how, while Huge Eakin explores the often exploitative art trends in the early 20th-century, he interjects with his own modern sympathies toward those wrongdoings - ex. P. 35 “today, the early-twentieth-century fascination with ‘primitive’ ethnographic material - driven by unenlightened notions of Western cultural superiority - has rightfully come under scrutiny.” I love this sentence! The structure! The claim! The thoughtfulness! Followed up with, “but for Picasso and his fellow rebels, non-We chi stern art was also a crucial source of inspiration, giving them new tools with which to challenge the prevailing order.”
David Kahnweiler supported Picasso, Braque, Derain at the beginning by guaranteeing he buy their works to sell - “the arrangement was a remarkably pure way to make art” p 78 but after WW1, so many had been called to action and their group dissolved that Picasso ended up working with Paul Rosenberg in Paris after he famously declared he wouldn’t work with a dealer. Rosenberg met up with John Quinn in Paris after forming a correspondence, and Quinn warned him that the USA was not ready for a major Picasso show after the disasters of years past, but Rosenberg in 1922 was adamant, putting together a traveling exhibition from NYC to Chicago that went horribly sour when very little sold and Rosenberg spent an exorbitant amount of money (at a time when the French franc had toppled)
“While he did not invoke Quinn explicitly, Barr made clear that the idea for their venture has its origins in the aftermath of the “riotous, epoch-making Atmory Exhibition of 1913.” Pg 209, the beginning of MoMA
“In the early twentieth century, many museums displayed painting in the popular “salon style,” with paintings organized symmetrically by size and hung in vertical stacks that sometimes went up to the ceiling. It has a decorative effect as wall cover, but it was a terrible way to look at art. Here, instead, the paintings were mounted on a single row at eye level and arranged so that they told a sequential story. Even the wall labels were interesting. Rather than merely listing titles and dates, they provided crucial information about a work’s significance and meaning.” P 212 about how different MoMA was to every other museum
“For more than twenty years, the two artists (Picasso and Matisse) had had an almost symbiotic rivalry, with each often responding to the other’s latest challenge. As long ago as the spring of 1907, Picasso had taken the Demoiselles in a radical direction in part to respond to Matisse’s notorious Blue Nude.” P 241
^Barr considered Demoiselles the first cubist picture, “a painting that was to earlier art what Einstein was to Newton.” P321-322
T s Eliot the waste land “T S Eliot composed much of The Waste Land while recovering from a nervous condition - the sanatorium movement was at its height in the early thirties. Setting new standards for modernist healthcare p 259
Beyond good and evil by Nietsche - could this be a direct stab at Carl Yung? In picasso’s war, Eakin writes about Jung’s reception of Picasso’s show at TheKunsthaus Zurich after its Georges Petit show - “in Jung’s turgid assessment, Picasso “follows not the accepted ideas of goodness and beauty, but the demoniacal attraction of ugliness and evil.” P 262
By the summer of 1933, modern art had become a war for [Alfred] Barr. P 271 - amidst the rise of Nazi Germany and their effectual erasure of modern art, architecture, design, film, etc. Barr was facing a nervous breakdown and severe health issues and modernism itself followed two very contrasting views; one imbued with underlying principles of freedom and truth, the other purely aesthetic” p 270
In 1934, Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum held the first comprehensive retrospective of Picasso at an esteemed American institution, but it was a flop! STILL!
In 1935, Alfred Barr chose to put on two exhibitions one surrounding surrealism and fantasy and the other around cubism, both heavily influenced by Picasso. When Picasso wouldn’t lend work due to his divorce with Olga, Barr pivoted to include Van Gogh and within the catalogue he made for the show… “beginning with the four foundational artists, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Seurat, (his org chart) then split into two pathways, both ending in abstraction: on the right was “geometrical abstract art” which started with cézanne and Seurat and evolving through cubism, constructivism, the bauhaus and many other movements; on the left, “non-geometrical abstract art” which started with Gauguin and Van Gogh and developed through fauvism, expressionism, dada, and surrealism.” P 304 - Bart’s vision was controversial, in later decades, the effort to impose such order out of the inherent chaos of modernism would appear an act of extraordinary hubris
During WW2, Picasso’s political disengagement was concerning, while Barr was often apolitical himself within his museum, he was “acutely aware of the extent to which modern art had been drawn into the defining ideological battles of his time
“Why do totalitarian dictators hate modern art?”
Because the artist, perhaps more than any other member of society, stands for individual freedom.”
Guernica’s decimation spurred Picasso to act on the mural piece he had promised for the spanish pavilion at the paris world fair. He had been in a rut, even declaring that he would never paint again at some point, but after Guernica he exploded on the canvas. It was met with horrible reviews - it would be Barr’s 1939 show - rather than the Paris Expo in 1937 or any of the Spanish relief shows that had come after it - that would finally sear Guernica into the public consciousness and definitively establish it as one of the century’s most enduring statements.” P 359
David Zwirner recommended to Bloomberg as one of his top books of 2022
“In offering a first glimpse of the new frontier of modern art, the Picasso exhibition at 291 was a coup.” P 18 - in 1911, curated by Alfred Stieglitz, photographer but also a man known to hold exhibitions of daring new artists - by 1913 “Picasso was not successful or well known enough for Americans” Fernande Olivier, his former lover noted
I really appreciate how, while Huge Eakin explores the often exploitative art trends in the early 20th-century, he interjects with his own modern sympathies toward those wrongdoings - ex. P. 35 “today, the early-twentieth-century fascination with ‘primitive’ ethnographic material - driven by unenlightened notions of Western cultural superiority - has rightfully come under scrutiny.” I love this sentence! The structure! The claim! The thoughtfulness! Followed up with, “but for Picasso and his fellow rebels, non-We chi stern art was also a crucial source of inspiration, giving them new tools with which to challenge the prevailing order.”
David Kahnweiler supported Picasso, Braque, Derain at the beginning by guaranteeing he buy their works to sell - “the arrangement was a remarkably pure way to make art” p 78 but after WW1, so many had been called to action and their group dissolved that Picasso ended up working with Paul Rosenberg in Paris after he famously declared he wouldn’t work with a dealer. Rosenberg met up with John Quinn in Paris after forming a correspondence, and Quinn warned him that the USA was not ready for a major Picasso show after the disasters of years past, but Rosenberg in 1922 was adamant, putting together a traveling exhibition from NYC to Chicago that went horribly sour when very little sold and Rosenberg spent an exorbitant amount of money (at a time when the French franc had toppled)
“While he did not invoke Quinn explicitly, Barr made clear that the idea for their venture has its origins in the aftermath of the “riotous, epoch-making Atmory Exhibition of 1913.” Pg 209, the beginning of MoMA
“In the early twentieth century, many museums displayed painting in the popular “salon style,” with paintings organized symmetrically by size and hung in vertical stacks that sometimes went up to the ceiling. It has a decorative effect as wall cover, but it was a terrible way to look at art. Here, instead, the paintings were mounted on a single row at eye level and arranged so that they told a sequential story. Even the wall labels were interesting. Rather than merely listing titles and dates, they provided crucial information about a work’s significance and meaning.” P 212 about how different MoMA was to every other museum
“For more than twenty years, the two artists (Picasso and Matisse) had had an almost symbiotic rivalry, with each often responding to the other’s latest challenge. As long ago as the spring of 1907, Picasso had taken the Demoiselles in a radical direction in part to respond to Matisse’s notorious Blue Nude.” P 241
^Barr considered Demoiselles the first cubist picture, “a painting that was to earlier art what Einstein was to Newton.” P321-322
T s Eliot the waste land “T S Eliot composed much of The Waste Land while recovering from a nervous condition - the sanatorium movement was at its height in the early thirties. Setting new standards for modernist healthcare p 259
Beyond good and evil by Nietsche - could this be a direct stab at Carl Yung? In picasso’s war, Eakin writes about Jung’s reception of Picasso’s show at TheKunsthaus Zurich after its Georges Petit show - “in Jung’s turgid assessment, Picasso “follows not the accepted ideas of goodness and beauty, but the demoniacal attraction of ugliness and evil.” P 262
By the summer of 1933, modern art had become a war for [Alfred] Barr. P 271 - amidst the rise of Nazi Germany and their effectual erasure of modern art, architecture, design, film, etc. Barr was facing a nervous breakdown and severe health issues and modernism itself followed two very contrasting views; one imbued with underlying principles of freedom and truth, the other purely aesthetic” p 270
In 1934, Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum held the first comprehensive retrospective of Picasso at an esteemed American institution, but it was a flop! STILL!
In 1935, Alfred Barr chose to put on two exhibitions one surrounding surrealism and fantasy and the other around cubism, both heavily influenced by Picasso. When Picasso wouldn’t lend work due to his divorce with Olga, Barr pivoted to include Van Gogh and within the catalogue he made for the show… “beginning with the four foundational artists, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Seurat, (his org chart) then split into two pathways, both ending in abstraction: on the right was “geometrical abstract art” which started with cézanne and Seurat and evolving through cubism, constructivism, the bauhaus and many other movements; on the left, “non-geometrical abstract art” which started with Gauguin and Van Gogh and developed through fauvism, expressionism, dada, and surrealism.” P 304 - Bart’s vision was controversial, in later decades, the effort to impose such order out of the inherent chaos of modernism would appear an act of extraordinary hubris
During WW2, Picasso’s political disengagement was concerning, while Barr was often apolitical himself within his museum, he was “acutely aware of the extent to which modern art had been drawn into the defining ideological battles of his time
“Why do totalitarian dictators hate modern art?”
Because the artist, perhaps more than any other member of society, stands for individual freedom.”
Guernica’s decimation spurred Picasso to act on the mural piece he had promised for the spanish pavilion at the paris world fair. He had been in a rut, even declaring that he would never paint again at some point, but after Guernica he exploded on the canvas. It was met with horrible reviews - it would be Barr’s 1939 show - rather than the Paris Expo in 1937 or any of the Spanish relief shows that had come after it - that would finally sear Guernica into the public consciousness and definitively establish it as one of the century’s most enduring statements.” P 359
David Zwirner recommended to Bloomberg as one of his top books of 2022
October 20, 2022
Ugh. WOW. This book is what very educational for me. Damn. This was so good. I learned so much about modern art and how it came to America and about its chief champion, John Quinn. It then moved into the founding of the Museum of Modern Art and how the MoMA built up its collection and did its thang. I originally thought the title was a bit of a misnomer but I no longer do. The book follows modern arts entrance to America through the 1913 Armory Show and John Quinn’s subsequent purchasing of numerous monumental cubist and surrealist works and MANY many Picasso paintings. I originally thought it should be called John Quinn’s war but then he died halfway through. And the book went on to describe the main struggle for modern art to be accepted in the US and the MoMA to be established as reputable. And the undercurrent connecting them all, Picasso.
Note: the end portion of the book devotes a lot of the narrative to “Guernica” my favorite Picasso painting and that was so cool
Note: the end portion of the book devotes a lot of the narrative to “Guernica” my favorite Picasso painting and that was so cool
August 19, 2022
Tour de force not just when it comes to shedding fresh light on the beginnings of modern art but the first 3-4 decades of 20th century history, replete with clashing cultures and visions, endemic resistance to new ideas and changes along with institutional myopia so relevant to this very day. Eakin offers a cast of colorful, anything but predictable real life characters and events so vivid that this book often reads like a great movie script. Just a pleasure to read something so well researched, thought out and written.
January 12, 2026
very compelling and well researched!!
November 7, 2023
Sensational book. I suppose you have to be interested in art to really appreciate it, but even without much background I think any reader will appreciate the gripping story. And while I already knew a fair amount about Picasso and his contemporaries, the focus here on two Americans (a collector and a museum director) was especially interesting and revelatory. I listened to the audiobook version, which was narrated wonderfully.
February 20, 2023
While I didn’t need Louis Menand’s wonderful review of this book for The New Yorker way back on June of 2022 (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...), he nails it perfectly at the onset saying this engaging, entertaining book “isn’t really about Picasso, or about war, or about art. Its subject is the creation of a market for a certain product, modern art.”
This period of time is truly fascinating to me: the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, both world wars and all the social-political turmoil that generated them, fields of study like psychology that were fraught with problems, and all the global happenings that became what is now known as Modern Art. The cover could be different and the subtitle of this book is more accurate to the story unfolding within its pages: this book relays how European Modern Art eventually found fertile soil in the United States after decades of resistance. Russian Constructivism, Italian Futurism, French Surrealism, the Dadaists (my personal favorite), and—ultimately—the Cubists were utterly spurned by American elitists stuck in old-world aesthetics. And let’s be honest here, the art market is ruled by money and those who have enough of it to buy fine art. Picasso’s War: How Modern Art Came to America grants a beautiful accounting of how Modern Art found its way into the mind of Americana, where now you can buy “Starry Night” umbrellas and “The Old Guitarist” coffee mugs, while selling one’s crappy digital artwork using non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This generation of fine artists was perhaps the first to become “pop stars” while still living, and we might be currently living in the end-times for fine art.
The underlying social psychology Eakin highlights, where extreme regimes ultimately detest anything that confuses, offends, or complicates their rosy, abhorrent worldviews, was a nice reminder of how certain factions within societies never truly change. From Nazis to Christian Conservatives to Russian autocrats to Nationalists of every stripe, new and progressive works of creativity, be them literary or fine, are all too easily scapegoated, vilified, and banned. Sure, Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” and its like are certainly questionable, but “avant-garde” is by definition “new and unusual or experimental ideas, especially in the arts, or the people introducing them”. Look to Postmodern Art to have your mind truly blown A society progresses forward with enough people powering the momentum and pushing through the barricades of resistance to change. Sometimes, artists can lead the way, and oftentimes they have, but as this book details, it takes zealots to help those artists reach the masses.
I’m not going to say the study of fine art is noble. It certainly has its place and it’s very interesting to me, but there are far greater things one could be studying. On the flip side, I believe reality is far stranger and more interesting than fiction. That is why I will continue to read such works, putting the pieces of History’s puzzle together with greater clarity, one book at a time. It’s a life-long learning process, but one I enjoy immensely.
This period of time is truly fascinating to me: the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, both world wars and all the social-political turmoil that generated them, fields of study like psychology that were fraught with problems, and all the global happenings that became what is now known as Modern Art. The cover could be different and the subtitle of this book is more accurate to the story unfolding within its pages: this book relays how European Modern Art eventually found fertile soil in the United States after decades of resistance. Russian Constructivism, Italian Futurism, French Surrealism, the Dadaists (my personal favorite), and—ultimately—the Cubists were utterly spurned by American elitists stuck in old-world aesthetics. And let’s be honest here, the art market is ruled by money and those who have enough of it to buy fine art. Picasso’s War: How Modern Art Came to America grants a beautiful accounting of how Modern Art found its way into the mind of Americana, where now you can buy “Starry Night” umbrellas and “The Old Guitarist” coffee mugs, while selling one’s crappy digital artwork using non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This generation of fine artists was perhaps the first to become “pop stars” while still living, and we might be currently living in the end-times for fine art.
The underlying social psychology Eakin highlights, where extreme regimes ultimately detest anything that confuses, offends, or complicates their rosy, abhorrent worldviews, was a nice reminder of how certain factions within societies never truly change. From Nazis to Christian Conservatives to Russian autocrats to Nationalists of every stripe, new and progressive works of creativity, be them literary or fine, are all too easily scapegoated, vilified, and banned. Sure, Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” and its like are certainly questionable, but “avant-garde” is by definition “new and unusual or experimental ideas, especially in the arts, or the people introducing them”. Look to Postmodern Art to have your mind truly blown A society progresses forward with enough people powering the momentum and pushing through the barricades of resistance to change. Sometimes, artists can lead the way, and oftentimes they have, but as this book details, it takes zealots to help those artists reach the masses.
I’m not going to say the study of fine art is noble. It certainly has its place and it’s very interesting to me, but there are far greater things one could be studying. On the flip side, I believe reality is far stranger and more interesting than fiction. That is why I will continue to read such works, putting the pieces of History’s puzzle together with greater clarity, one book at a time. It’s a life-long learning process, but one I enjoy immensely.
October 1, 2022
Much as I try not to acquire more books, I have a feeling this one is going to join many others on my Picasso shelf. It's really two research studies: the first concerning American attorney and prescient art collector John Quinn and the phenomenal collection of modern art he assembled in the first decades of the 20th century, which sadly was dispersed after his death. The second focuses on the extraordinary career of Alfred Barr, mastermind of the Museum of Modern Art, from his precocious study of what was then contemporary art history in the 1920s to the opening of the iconic 53rd Street building of MOMA in November 1939 with the masterful exhibition, "Picasso: Forty Years of His Art," which then toured U.S. museums for two years because the objects on loan could not return to Europe during WWII. Central to both sections are Pablo Picasso, his French dealers Kahnweiler and Rosenberg, and the two world wars. Among the strengths of the book is the author's attention to a number of women who were instrumental in the art world, including Picasso's wife Olga who is usually downplayed as a crank; Jeanne Robert Foster, an independent American journalist who was a close friend and kind of special assistant in Quinn's pursuit of art acquisitions, especially in Europe; and Margaret Scolari Barr, Alfred's accomplished art historian wife, who gave up her own career position to partner with him on his endeavors to realize his vision of a museum of modern art, design, architecture, and film. Parenthetically, I want to mention that the socio-cultural world seen here echoes that in another book I recently read that covers the same period, Toibin's The Magician, including apparently fluid sexual patterns and untraditional marital arrangements such as Thomas and Katya Mann and Alfred and Marga Barr.
Besides being fascinating in its own right, I am also especially drawn to this book for personal reasons. My mother's family frequented "the Modern" from the start. As a young child during WWII, I visited as often as once a week; attended Victor d'Amico's children's art class, possibly in its first year; and remember going with my parents very soon after my father returned from WWII. Subsequently my first full-time job in the 1960s was in the Registrar's Office at MOMA. I worked on traveling exhibitions, so I can understand--actually feel--what was required for the Barrs to arrange the exhibitions described in this book--although the travails they endured because of the more limited means of communications in the 1930s, no air transport and uncertain sea transport, and all the dangers and unpredictability of war, on top of Picasso's unpredictable agreements, and the fiscal limitations for programs and acquisitions imposed by the trustees, made their task immeasurably more difficult than my orderly job.
As I type this on my computer on October 1, 2022, I recall that Associate Registrar, David Vance went on to be part of the Museum Computer Network (I think that was the title) that designed the first programs for collection management. On the wall above my screen is a poster from the Robert Motherwell retrospective that took place at MOMA exactly 57 years ago, from October 1-November 28, 1965, signed and inscribed to me in pencil by the artist.
Besides being fascinating in its own right, I am also especially drawn to this book for personal reasons. My mother's family frequented "the Modern" from the start. As a young child during WWII, I visited as often as once a week; attended Victor d'Amico's children's art class, possibly in its first year; and remember going with my parents very soon after my father returned from WWII. Subsequently my first full-time job in the 1960s was in the Registrar's Office at MOMA. I worked on traveling exhibitions, so I can understand--actually feel--what was required for the Barrs to arrange the exhibitions described in this book--although the travails they endured because of the more limited means of communications in the 1930s, no air transport and uncertain sea transport, and all the dangers and unpredictability of war, on top of Picasso's unpredictable agreements, and the fiscal limitations for programs and acquisitions imposed by the trustees, made their task immeasurably more difficult than my orderly job.
As I type this on my computer on October 1, 2022, I recall that Associate Registrar, David Vance went on to be part of the Museum Computer Network (I think that was the title) that designed the first programs for collection management. On the wall above my screen is a poster from the Robert Motherwell retrospective that took place at MOMA exactly 57 years ago, from October 1-November 28, 1965, signed and inscribed to me in pencil by the artist.
January 21, 2023
Hugh Eakin 的这本书从一个很独特的角度来讲述现代艺术是如何被美国普罗大众及艺术市场所接受的。现代艺术的发展从欧洲起步，经过两次世界大战，最终在二战后才在美国落地生根。这段历史---从1913的军械库展览会，到二战前夕在纽约现代艺术博物馆举办的毕加索四十年艺术回顾展--- 也许很多关注艺术史的人都已了解。但Eakin 的这本书非常值得一看， 因为作者基于对大量的文献，书信等资料，把故事讲的跌宕起伏，时不时抛出些有典可循的八卦掌故，让人时而扼腕，时而莞尔。
故事的前半段围绕John Quinn 和他的现代艺术收藏展开， 时间跨度在1910到1920年期间。 Quinn可以说是美国的第一个现代艺术收藏家。他是一个走在了时代前面的先驱者，因此也不免带有一种宿命的悲剧性。 他毕生致力于收藏最有代表性的欧洲现代艺术作品，可以说是最早收藏了毕加索作品的美国人，但他的收藏在他死后被全部拍卖。他曾经倡导建立的现代艺术博物馆，要到他死后五年才成立。而真正实现了Quinn 的理想，让美国民众开始接受毕加索为代表的现代艺术，要到他去世15年以后。这也是故事的后半段，关于纽约现代艺术博物馆（MoMA) 的第一个馆长Alfred H. Barr 和毕加索的故事。
和Quinn 相似， Barr 也是一个很早便对毕加索的作品持有强烈信念的人。1929年MoMA 成立之初，Barr 就致力于要将毕加索的作品介绍给美国民众。类似的尝试，Quinn 和他的朋友，以及毕加索的重要画商Rosenberg 已经经历了多次的失败。从1929年到1939年，Barr 在经历了十年的努力，最终才得以实现他的梦想。这期间，Barr把一个既缺钱又缺馆藏的全新的博物馆发展到美国顶尖的现代艺术馆。有意思的是，让美国大众第一次体验到现代艺术之美是Barr 在MoMA 策划的梵高展。
诚然，现代艺术在美国最终被接受并发展起来，离不开从Quinn 到Barr 两代人的助力推动，但另一方面，第二次世界大战的爆发让美国成为欧洲艺术家和艺术品的避难地，纳粹对现代艺术的打压反而让先锋艺术成了反法西斯的象征，时代变革最终带来观念的改变，毕加索终于在二战期间成了美国家喻户晓的艺术大师。所以说，历史的进程要天时地利人和。
这本书讲述了很多Quinn 和 Barr 与毕加索 以及他的两位重要的代理商 Kahnweiler 和 Rosenberg 之间的故事，不乏有趣的八卦，历史恩怨，不可不谓错综复杂的关系。比如 Quinn 通过Henri-Pierre Roché 绕过Rosenberg 和毕加索私下交易，Barr 为了办展不得不吹捧恭维Rosenberg，而Rosenberg 最终还得依靠Barr 的影响逃离纳粹入侵下的欧洲，Kahnweiler则在被Rosenberg 夺取毕加索代理权二十年后和毕加索重归于好笑到最后。作者旁征博引大量的私人书信，读起来生动有趣，情感真挚。
MoMA是我在纽约去的第一个博物馆。当年，我看到“亚维农的少女” 和 "沉睡的吉普赛人" 时， 还不了解有关这些艺术品的收藏历史。感谢Eakin 的这本书，它让我在再次站到这些伟大的作品面前时，会想起Quinn 如何在他去世前买下了亨利 卢梭神秘迷人的吉普赛人，想起Barr 如何说服理事会收购了开创性的亚维农的少女。于是，那些被人们遗忘了故事，让我和百余年前的作品有了更深的共鸣。
故事的前半段围绕John Quinn 和他的现代艺术收藏展开， 时间跨度在1910到1920年期间。 Quinn可以说是美国的第一个现代艺术收藏家。他是一个走在了时代前面的先驱者，因此也不免带有一种宿命的悲剧性。 他毕生致力于收藏最有代表性的欧洲现代艺术作品，可以说是最早收藏了毕加索作品的美国人，但他的收藏在他死后被全部拍卖。他曾经倡导建立的现代艺术博物馆，要到他死后五年才成立。而真正实现了Quinn 的理想，让美国民众开始接受毕加索为代表的现代艺术，要到他去世15年以后。这也是故事的后半段，关于纽约现代艺术博物馆（MoMA) 的第一个馆长Alfred H. Barr 和毕加索的故事。
和Quinn 相似， Barr 也是一个很早便对毕加索的作品持有强烈信念的人。1929年MoMA 成立之初，Barr 就致力于要将毕加索的作品介绍给美国民众。类似的尝试，Quinn 和他的朋友，以及毕加索的重要画商Rosenberg 已经经历了多次的失败。从1929年到1939年，Barr 在经历了十年的努力，最终才得以实现他的梦想。这期间，Barr把一个既缺钱又缺馆藏的全新的博物馆发展到美国顶尖的现代艺术馆。有意思的是，让美国大众第一次体验到现代艺术之美是Barr 在MoMA 策划的梵高展。
诚然，现代艺术在美国最终被接受并发展起来，离不开从Quinn 到Barr 两代人的助力推动，但另一方面，第二次世界大战的爆发让美国成为欧洲艺术家和艺术品的避难地，纳粹对现代艺术的打压反而让先锋艺术成了反法西斯的象征，时代变革最终带来观念的改变，毕加索终于在二战期间成了美国家喻户晓的艺术大师。所以说，历史的进程要天时地利人和。
这本书讲述了很多Quinn 和 Barr 与毕加索 以及他的两位重要的代理商 Kahnweiler 和 Rosenberg 之间的故事，不乏有趣的八卦，历史恩怨，不可不谓错综复杂的关系。比如 Quinn 通过Henri-Pierre Roché 绕过Rosenberg 和毕加索私下交易，Barr 为了办展不得不吹捧恭维Rosenberg，而Rosenberg 最终还得依靠Barr 的影响逃离纳粹入侵下的欧洲，Kahnweiler则在被Rosenberg 夺取毕加索代理权二十年后和毕加索重归于好笑到最后。作者旁征博引大量的私人书信，读起来生动有趣，情感真挚。
MoMA是我在纽约去的第一个博物馆。当年，我看到“亚维农的少女” 和 "沉睡的吉普赛人" 时， 还不了解有关这些艺术品的收藏历史。感谢Eakin 的这本书，它让我在再次站到这些伟大的作品面前时，会想起Quinn 如何在他去世前买下了亨利 卢梭神秘迷人的吉普赛人，想起Barr 如何说服理事会收购了开创性的亚维农的少女。于是，那些被人们遗忘了故事，让我和百余年前的作品有了更深的共鸣。
August 5, 2025
top five books I’ve read
January 3, 2023
This book, a Christmas present, is better than 3 but does not quite deserve 4. It is not so much about Picasso as about the funding of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It starts with the story of John Quinn, a maverick Irish-American lawyer collector who amasses a huge number of Picassos and other modern art, but the collection was dispersed on his death, largely abroad due to the innate conservatism of rich Americans buying art in the early 20C. That is the first third of the book, and allegedly connect to the founding of MOMA by an inspiring exhibition of his collection before it was sold off. And then the remainder of the book is about how the brilliant young art historian Alfred Barr struggled to organise the first major Picasso exhibition in the USA and somehow founded MOMA in the process. The book is way too detailed and the story could have been told in far fewer pages BUT, as my family pointed out, somehow of the details were very interesting - for instance, Quinn was in correspondence about modern art with Judge Learned Hand, the most distinguished resident of Elizabethtown where we go for summer holidays in upstate New York. (Also 'blockbuster' was a term coined by the RAF for special bombs which could destroy an entire city block). But, unless you are hugely interested, you can skip this book.
January 12, 2026
This book was honestly a slog, the recurring theme of [individual] wants to show Picasso's paintings but the art is unavailable because [insert reason], but then at the last minute, [event] occurs and [insert other painter]'s art is shown instead, and the day is saved but alas the dream of a comprehensive modernist art show stretching from early Cezanne's through Picasso's blue period to his later hermetic cubist work is unrealized.
By the end, I was really gleaning more joy from the incipient war vibes, and I learned that "blockbuster" was a term used by the RAF for when the wiped out entire blocks of German cities.
Also, Picasso was a player. And you could probably cut the first 150 pages about John Quinn without substantially changing any of the book -- he MIGHT be mentioned 5 times in the next 250 pages, and only in an "oh well, if only he hadn't died" sorta way.
I was impressed with the depth of Hugh's research and the narrative quality the book possessed. It's not his fault that the events were reduplicative and anticlimactic.
Finally, I have some beef with the title of the book. While the subtitle works, it was never really Picasso's war. In fact, he seemed pretty disinterested with bringing art to America. Barr's war would make more sense.
By the end, I was really gleaning more joy from the incipient war vibes, and I learned that "blockbuster" was a term used by the RAF for when the wiped out entire blocks of German cities.
Also, Picasso was a player. And you could probably cut the first 150 pages about John Quinn without substantially changing any of the book -- he MIGHT be mentioned 5 times in the next 250 pages, and only in an "oh well, if only he hadn't died" sorta way.
I was impressed with the depth of Hugh's research and the narrative quality the book possessed. It's not his fault that the events were reduplicative and anticlimactic.
Finally, I have some beef with the title of the book. While the subtitle works, it was never really Picasso's war. In fact, he seemed pretty disinterested with bringing art to America. Barr's war would make more sense.
January 18, 2024
Picasso’s War delves into the world of art dealers, art exhibitions, and art pieces that brought the United States into the modern art era. The many details almost made me put down the book (hence the three star rating), yet it was intriguing enough for me to keep picking back up. I jumped into the art dealer’s world, of which I had no prior knowledge. I found myself googling names and famous paintings. I came to appreciate paintings by Picasso, Van Gogh, Rousseau, and others.
The title is misleading as the book is not focused on Picasso himself, but on the dealers who were vying for his paintings. I wish the author would have gone deeper into the “why’s”. Although it was briefly touched on, I think more could have been devoted to the cultural impact of the paintings. But if you want a thorough overview of the “how’s”, this is your book.
The title is misleading as the book is not focused on Picasso himself, but on the dealers who were vying for his paintings. I wish the author would have gone deeper into the “why’s”. Although it was briefly touched on, I think more could have been devoted to the cultural impact of the paintings. But if you want a thorough overview of the “how’s”, this is your book.
October 31, 2024
I had no idea about how modern art came to America and role two prominent men played in the process, John Quinn and Alfred Barr so it was fascinating to read--I take the iconic collections of MoMA and other museums as givens in my life experience. My mom had a classic print of one of Picasso's works in our house during my early years. But it was not always so. The audiobook was a bit annoying with all native pronunciations of artists names, like Van Gogh and Rosseau. Would never have picked up this book without my book club!
September 26, 2022
Fascinating, well researched book on how modern art (from the impressionists on) which was decried by critics and collectors in America in the early 20th century while being celebrated in Europe gained acceptance. Eakin focuses on two men who helped this along, one a collector whose first class collection of modern was eventually scattered away from America after his death, and the other, an art enthusiast who founded the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.
March 8, 2024
a big fat dnf but I learned something important about myself, I do not care about art history. I thought this book would focus more around Picasso and his life but instead it's about just modern art in general coming to America (I know it says taht in the title, I'm an idiot). I also was hoping to see more paintings as a hardcover but really they only had a few pictures which is super lame.
September 2, 2022
My favorite nonfiction book this year. The history of the M oMA and cubist art and Picasso told in straight forward prose and fascinating detail. I learned so much and now must visit the museums to seek out the art.
January 7, 2024
Vivid story about the evolution of modern art and how peoples’ perspectives changed throughout WWI, The Great Depression, and the looming second World War. I wanted to read a book like this since I knew next to nothing about art and museums, but now feel I understand them better.
June 15, 2024
Informative about interesting people in a historic time. Almost felt like more of a history of the MoMA than Picasso, specifically, but that’s not a bad thing. Overall well written and worth a read for anyone interested in inter-war history.
January 2, 2023
I LOVE PICASSO
Learn how Picasso eventually conquered a conservative America.
America and modern art. They’ve always gone together like chocolate and peanut butter. After all, New York City is the home of Andy Warhol and Pop Art, right? Well, yes and no. The story of modern art in America is actually filled with plenty of dramatic ups and downs.
In the early twentieth century, America was hostile territory for modern art. It was typically met with hysterical reactions from critics, the press, the public, other artists, and even mental health professionals. The works were heralded as being the output of deranged minds – a threat to the very fabric of society. Rembrandt, Velázquez – the Old Masters were what they wanted to see and buy, not geometric depictions of naked brothel workers or gooey renderings of sunflowers.
This was bad news for European artists and the few people in the States that recognized the genius in the work of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and other modern artists. This is the story of how they persisted and eventually won over the hearts and minds of America.
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A First Glimpse
In early 1911, John Quinn stood in the small New York City art space known as 291. He was staring at a charcoal sketch known as Standing Female Nude. It was part of an exhibition of works by Pablo Picasso. The gallery was little more than a 15-square-foot loft heated by an exposed wood-burning stove. But it would go down in history as hosting the very first Picasso exhibition held in the United States.
The pieces on display were only drawings, but they still came as a shock. Picasso was in his cubist phase – among the pioneers of the form – and many people couldn’t make heads or tails of the sharp angles and disorienting changes in perspective. Even Quinn was flummoxed by this first encounter.
Quinn was 41 years old. He was a successful and respected lawyer by day, but he also prided himself on being at the cutting edge of culture. An Irish-American, Quinn was a well-established cultural conduit between the US, Ireland, and England. He counted the writers W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, and T. S. Eliot among his friends. He often supported these artists by promoting their work, connecting them with American publishers.
But one thing that Quinn didn’t have access to was modern art. Sadly, most Americans were still obsessed with classical work. Even late nineteenth-century post-Impressionists like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Paul Cézanne were largely unseen by American eyes in 1911.
So, here Quinn was, finally setting eyes on his first Picasso. And, like we said, he was flummoxed. One critic described Standing Female Nude as looking like “a fire escape, and not a good fire escape at that.” Quinn, on the other hand, wasn’t so opposed. He wasn’t fully on board yet, either, but he recognized that Picasso was doing something remarkable. Cubism wasn’t just new, it was a daring leap forward. It was also obvious to Quinn that Picasso didn’t care about public opinion. And for that reason alone, he was deeply impressed with what he saw. Now, if only he could see more.
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Protests and Taxes
If you’ve ever been a collector of anything, you probably know how it goes. What starts as a fun hobby can soon turn into an all-consuming passion. Collecting modern art quickly became just that for John Quinn, as every penny he made through his law practice got funneled into this new pursuit.
There was a practical reason behind Quinn’s collection. Simply put, someone had to do it. In his opinion, the Metropolitan Museum had hardly anything good from the nineteenth century at all. Quinn felt like he had to take the initiative. Maybe, one day, his collection could serve as the foundation for a real modern museum of art.
So, in 1913, Quinn helped to take the movement two monumental steps forward – both being prime examples of just how influential he could be. First was the landmark event known as the Armory Show.
The Armory Show earned its name by taking place at the headquarters of an Irish American infantry regiment, on Lexington Avenue in New York City. Within this vast space were six galleries that charted the progression of modern art. It began with Impressionists like Monet and Renoir and reached a climactic grand finale with Cubist work from Francis Picabia, a shockingly modern sculpture of a female head by Constantin Brâncuși, and Marcel Duchamp’s radical Nude Descending a Staircase – a work that superimposed six different figures, rendered with geometric shapes, to represent precisely what the title suggests.
Quinn gave a rousing speech to open the exhibition, and in some nostalgic narratives, the Armory Show was a huge success that marked the beginning of America’s embrace of modern art. But that’s far from the truth. Yes, thousands of people flocked to see the show every day, but the artworks were generally received with laughter and scorn, if not outright hostility. Even the former president Theodore Roosevelt, who’d known Quinn for years, cited the artworks as examples of the “lunatic fringe.” This was, more or less, the general consensus. “Ridiculous” and “poisonous” were words that art critics used. The New York Times ran an op-ed that called modern art a movement meant to “disrupt, degrade, if not destroy” society.
Part of Quinn’s aim with the Armory Show was to kick-start the overseas market for modern paintings and sculptures. This too was a bust. But there was a bigger problem in this regard.
For decades, America had imposed prohibitive import taxes on foreign art that had been created in the past 20 years. In theory, this was meant to support the buying of new American art, but in practice, it had the harmful effect of sealing the US art scene off from outside influences. Who’d want to show Cézannes and Van Goghs if no one wanted to buy them and they’d cost the dealer hundreds of dollars in excess fees just to get them into the US?
Quinn was, of course, one of the few who did want to buy. But he also saw the law as being largely responsible for keeping the American art scene some 50 years behind Europe. Such was his status as a respected lawyer, that in 1913 he successfully lobbied the government to put an end to the punitive law. It was a major victory for Quinn and for modern art. It changed everything, both for American buyers and for European dealers eager to expand the marketplace.
In the next section, we’ll look at a couple of the most prominent European dealers, and the role they played in the career of Pablo Picasso – the one modern artist who could truly conquer America.
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Dealing with Picasso
It was July 1907, when Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler knocked on the door of a dilapidated building in the Montmartre district of Paris. When the door finally opened, Kahnweiler was greeted by a short, bedraggled young man standing in his underwear. He welcomed Kahnweiler in, and while the strange man put on some pants, Kahnweiler took in the scene. The place was a mess. Wallpaper was peeling off the walls. Junk was strewn everywhere. What little furniture there was had a layer of cigarette ash covering it. The place reeked of dog and paint. This was Pablo Picasso’s studio.
Kahnweiler was an ambitious and inexperienced art dealer in his early twenties. He was a German-Jewish man who’d recently borrowed some money from his uncle to start his own gallery in Paris. He had no connections, knew very few artists, but he loved modern art and had good taste.
So here he was, amidst the squalor, looking at the insane amount of art that Picasso had recently produced in his studio. And from there, Kahnweiler and Picasso quickly agreed to a contract. They had a lot in common when it came to the business of art. Neither cared for exhibitions or promoting. Kahnweiler would hang the art in his spartan gallery and people would either recognize the genius and want to buy it or not.
One person who did want to buy was Sergei Shchukin, a Russian textile baron who, in the years leading up to the First World War, amassed one of the world’s most impressive collections of Picassos and Matisses, as well as Van Goghs, Monets, Cézannes, and Gauguins. Shchukin would open his collection to the public on Sundays, and as a result, many in Moscow fell in love with even the most radical modern art. Within a decade, clients like Shchukin helped turn Picasso into a major name. Other leading artists also signed contracts with Kahnweiler, including Georges Braque, André Derain, Juan Gris, and Maurice de Vlaminck – making Kahnweiler the top dealer in Paris. But in the days leading up to the First World War, competition was brewing.
As far as personality and approach, Kahnweiler had his counterpoint in Paul Rosenberg. Rosenberg was born in Paris, but also came from a similar middle-to-upper-class Jewish background. But whereas Kahnweiler liked to keep things low-key, Rosenberg enjoyed putting on big openings in his gallery, where he’d decorate the place with modernist furniture and play the role of gracious host.
Kahnweiler and Rosenberg maintained a professional relationship, but then war broke out in 1914. Being German, Kahnweiler knew he had to leave France. But he underestimated the situation. He thought the war would be over quickly and that his collection would be safe in storage. Instead, all of his assets were frozen and his massive collection – which included 132 Picassos, 135 Braques, and hundreds more from his other artists – was confiscated and put up for auction. To add insult to injury, the auction was conducted by none other than Rosenberg’s brother.
Without access to his bank account, Kahnweiler was unable to send Picasso the money that he owed him, nor could he grant him access to retrieve his paintings before they were confiscated. The whole situation ruined their friendship, at least for a while. It also resulted in Picasso turning to Rosenberg for representation. Unlike Kahnweiler, Rosenberg would do everything he could to promote Picasso, both in Europe and abroad.
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Untimely Ends
Back in New York, John Quinn wasn’t feeling so well. For years, Quinn had known something was wrong, but in 1919, he received a grim diagnosis that he had cancer, and likely had only six years left to live. By this time, Quinn had already amassed what was likely the biggest collection of modern art in America. His Upper-West Side apartment had rows of paintings stacked against the wall in every possible location. The only thing holding him back was space and money. He’d developed strong relationships with European dealers like Rosenberg. He’d even visited Picasso at his home.
The American press, however, continued to refer to modern art as dangerous and degenerate “bolshevik” art, the work of “madmen'' whose visions could only serve to corrupt wholesome American minds. And when Quinn finally passed away in 1924, the Metropolitan Museum still failed to own a single Van Gogh, Gauguin, or Toulouse-Lautrec – never mind a Picasso or a Matisse.
Upon Quinn’s death, he’d accumulated over 2,500 works of art. It was a staggering collection. His taste was so good that nearly all of them would be considered masterpieces today. But in 1924, they were of little discernible value to the lawyers dealing with his estate. He had no wife and no kids. And since no US museums were interested in modern art, he could only donate works to European museums like the Louvre. Still, many of them would end up on the auction block, being dispersed around the world.
Lillie P. Bliss, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and Mary Sullivan were three New York high society women who’d all been close to Quinn and appreciated modern art. They were rightfully dismayed at how the collection couldn’t remain intact, and in New York, as Quinn had hoped. It was shameful, and Bliss, Sullivan, and Rockefeller decided to do something about it by creating the Museum of Modern Art in 1929. A public home for modern art in America.
When searching for a director, they chose 27-year-old Alfred Barr, who’d developed one of America’s first undergraduate courses devoted to modern art. Once offered the job, Barr jumped at the opportunity. Together with his wife, Margaret Scolari, Barr proceeded to revolutionize the art world and take the Museum of Modern Art from the 12th floor of the Heckscher Building to a sleek, ultra-modern work of architectural art on 53rd Street.
Perhaps something in the air had changed, because the museum’s very first show was not only a hit with audiences, it succeeded with the critics as well. A sort of founding-fathers-of-modern-art show, it featured nearly a hundred paintings from four artists: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, and Seurat. It was a true blockbuster. Every day, the line to get in stretched around the corner onto Fifth Avenue.
There were a few things that made Barr’s exhibitions different. First, he didn’t do European “salon style,” which involved stacking pictures on the wall from floor to ceiling. His walls were white, and all paintings were spaced apart and displayed at eye level. This was completely new at the time.
Also, Barr still wanted to teach, to contextualize. So all of his shows came with texts and booklets that guided the viewer along and explained how the art they were seeing fit into the bigger picture of art history. You know those little descriptions on the wall next to the paintings? That was Barr’s idea.
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Modern Art Takes a Victory Lap
In the 1930s other cultural and political changes were happening too, which, in the long run, would make modern art look like a bold signifier of democracy and freedom.
When the Nazi party took over in Germany, modern art exhibitions began to get shut down, galleries were closed, and works were being taken off the walls in museums. A similar thing was happening in Stalin’s Russia, but in Germany, the term “degenerate art” was being used exactly the same way the term had been used in America. Only now, the works were being forcibly taken away by Gestapo agents.
As things got worse, and the Second World War spread across Europe, more and more artists fled to America. This too helped change the general conception of modern art in the US. All of a sudden, America was a safe haven for bold and daring artists, and people began to take pride in this idea.
The Museum of Modern Art was certainly helping as well. In particular, there was a landmark exhibition that focused solely on Vincent van Gogh. It was another huge accomplishment for Barr. As the text for the show, he only used quotes from Vincent’s letters to his brother Theo, and they guided the viewer through the tragic trajectory of his life. It was a genuinely moving experience and another huge success.
From early on, though, Barr wanted one artist in particular: Picasso. Like Quinn, Barr saw Picasso as a kind of Rosetta Stone for modern art. Picasso had worked in neoclassical, surrealism, cubism, and beyond. If the exhibition was properly curated, rather than seeing modern art as being madness, viewers would be able to chart the evolution and recognize how it was all directly connected to what came before.
But it wasn’t so easy. Not only was Picasso always going through some personal crisis – often involving his mistress or his wife, or both – Rosenberg was also a strict and demanding gatekeeper. After years of trying unsuccessfully to crack the American market for Picasso, Rosenberg wasn’t so eager to send another boatload of paintings across the Atlantic.
So, for practically ten years, Barr’s dream of a Picasso exhibition was postponed again and again. But in November 1939, the museum was planning to open a magnificent new headquarters on 53rd Street, and Barr was determined to make Picasso his grand opening exhibition.
This time, however, there was an even bigger complication: World War II. This dramatically changed Rosenberg’s plans. Not only did he need to get his family out of France, sending his most prized artworks to Barr’s museum was the perfect way to keep them safe.
As a result, Picasso: Forty Years of His Art was one of the greatest exhibitions the nation had ever seen. Picasso, Rosenberg, and many other European collectors and dealers came through and filled Barr’s exhibition with over 360 works from throughout Picasso’s career. It broke every attendance record. After New York, the show toured around the country. By 1943, it had reached 22 cities before it took a victory lap back in New York. In Boston, one conservative critic even had to admit, after seeing the Picasso show, everything else seemed boring.
The show wasn’t just a hit with the public and the press, it changed American culture. Fashion shops across the country were using Picasso imagery to spice up window displays, and designers were using the artist as inspiration for their next season’s look. For the next generation of artists, like Roy Lichtenstein and Jackson Pollock, seeing the Picasso show was foundational to their own artistic development.
It took decades, and many converging forces, but Picasso’s groundbreaking modern art eventually won over American audiences. Things haven’t been the same since.
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New York lawyer John Quinn was one of the first champions of modern art in America. He helped launch the first comprehensive modern art exhibition and was responsible for removing the prohibitive tax on the import of modern art. When Quinn passed away, his immense collection inspired others to create the Museum of Modern Art. The museum’s first director, Alfred Barr, educated the public on the value and lineage of modern art and helped win over new viewers. His exhibitions on Van Gogh and Picasso won over the nation and helped set the stage for a new generation of modern artists.
Learn how Picasso eventually conquered a conservative America.
America and modern art. They’ve always gone together like chocolate and peanut butter. After all, New York City is the home of Andy Warhol and Pop Art, right? Well, yes and no. The story of modern art in America is actually filled with plenty of dramatic ups and downs.
In the early twentieth century, America was hostile territory for modern art. It was typically met with hysterical reactions from critics, the press, the public, other artists, and even mental health professionals. The works were heralded as being the output of deranged minds – a threat to the very fabric of society. Rembrandt, Velázquez – the Old Masters were what they wanted to see and buy, not geometric depictions of naked brothel workers or gooey renderings of sunflowers.
This was bad news for European artists and the few people in the States that recognized the genius in the work of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and other modern artists. This is the story of how they persisted and eventually won over the hearts and minds of America.
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A First Glimpse
In early 1911, John Quinn stood in the small New York City art space known as 291. He was staring at a charcoal sketch known as Standing Female Nude. It was part of an exhibition of works by Pablo Picasso. The gallery was little more than a 15-square-foot loft heated by an exposed wood-burning stove. But it would go down in history as hosting the very first Picasso exhibition held in the United States.
The pieces on display were only drawings, but they still came as a shock. Picasso was in his cubist phase – among the pioneers of the form – and many people couldn’t make heads or tails of the sharp angles and disorienting changes in perspective. Even Quinn was flummoxed by this first encounter.
Quinn was 41 years old. He was a successful and respected lawyer by day, but he also prided himself on being at the cutting edge of culture. An Irish-American, Quinn was a well-established cultural conduit between the US, Ireland, and England. He counted the writers W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, and T. S. Eliot among his friends. He often supported these artists by promoting their work, connecting them with American publishers.
But one thing that Quinn didn’t have access to was modern art. Sadly, most Americans were still obsessed with classical work. Even late nineteenth-century post-Impressionists like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Paul Cézanne were largely unseen by American eyes in 1911.
So, here Quinn was, finally setting eyes on his first Picasso. And, like we said, he was flummoxed. One critic described Standing Female Nude as looking like “a fire escape, and not a good fire escape at that.” Quinn, on the other hand, wasn’t so opposed. He wasn’t fully on board yet, either, but he recognized that Picasso was doing something remarkable. Cubism wasn’t just new, it was a daring leap forward. It was also obvious to Quinn that Picasso didn’t care about public opinion. And for that reason alone, he was deeply impressed with what he saw. Now, if only he could see more.
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Protests and Taxes
If you’ve ever been a collector of anything, you probably know how it goes. What starts as a fun hobby can soon turn into an all-consuming passion. Collecting modern art quickly became just that for John Quinn, as every penny he made through his law practice got funneled into this new pursuit.
There was a practical reason behind Quinn’s collection. Simply put, someone had to do it. In his opinion, the Metropolitan Museum had hardly anything good from the nineteenth century at all. Quinn felt like he had to take the initiative. Maybe, one day, his collection could serve as the foundation for a real modern museum of art.
So, in 1913, Quinn helped to take the movement two monumental steps forward – both being prime examples of just how influential he could be. First was the landmark event known as the Armory Show.
The Armory Show earned its name by taking place at the headquarters of an Irish American infantry regiment, on Lexington Avenue in New York City. Within this vast space were six galleries that charted the progression of modern art. It began with Impressionists like Monet and Renoir and reached a climactic grand finale with Cubist work from Francis Picabia, a shockingly modern sculpture of a female head by Constantin Brâncuși, and Marcel Duchamp’s radical Nude Descending a Staircase – a work that superimposed six different figures, rendered with geometric shapes, to represent precisely what the title suggests.
Quinn gave a rousing speech to open the exhibition, and in some nostalgic narratives, the Armory Show was a huge success that marked the beginning of America’s embrace of modern art. But that’s far from the truth. Yes, thousands of people flocked to see the show every day, but the artworks were generally received with laughter and scorn, if not outright hostility. Even the former president Theodore Roosevelt, who’d known Quinn for years, cited the artworks as examples of the “lunatic fringe.” This was, more or less, the general consensus. “Ridiculous” and “poisonous” were words that art critics used. The New York Times ran an op-ed that called modern art a movement meant to “disrupt, degrade, if not destroy” society.
Part of Quinn’s aim with the Armory Show was to kick-start the overseas market for modern paintings and sculptures. This too was a bust. But there was a bigger problem in this regard.
For decades, America had imposed prohibitive import taxes on foreign art that had been created in the past 20 years. In theory, this was meant to support the buying of new American art, but in practice, it had the harmful effect of sealing the US art scene off from outside influences. Who’d want to show Cézannes and Van Goghs if no one wanted to buy them and they’d cost the dealer hundreds of dollars in excess fees just to get them into the US?
Quinn was, of course, one of the few who did want to buy. But he also saw the law as being largely responsible for keeping the American art scene some 50 years behind Europe. Such was his status as a respected lawyer, that in 1913 he successfully lobbied the government to put an end to the punitive law. It was a major victory for Quinn and for modern art. It changed everything, both for American buyers and for European dealers eager to expand the marketplace.
In the next section, we’ll look at a couple of the most prominent European dealers, and the role they played in the career of Pablo Picasso – the one modern artist who could truly conquer America.
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Dealing with Picasso
It was July 1907, when Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler knocked on the door of a dilapidated building in the Montmartre district of Paris. When the door finally opened, Kahnweiler was greeted by a short, bedraggled young man standing in his underwear. He welcomed Kahnweiler in, and while the strange man put on some pants, Kahnweiler took in the scene. The place was a mess. Wallpaper was peeling off the walls. Junk was strewn everywhere. What little furniture there was had a layer of cigarette ash covering it. The place reeked of dog and paint. This was Pablo Picasso’s studio.
Kahnweiler was an ambitious and inexperienced art dealer in his early twenties. He was a German-Jewish man who’d recently borrowed some money from his uncle to start his own gallery in Paris. He had no connections, knew very few artists, but he loved modern art and had good taste.
So here he was, amidst the squalor, looking at the insane amount of art that Picasso had recently produced in his studio. And from there, Kahnweiler and Picasso quickly agreed to a contract. They had a lot in common when it came to the business of art. Neither cared for exhibitions or promoting. Kahnweiler would hang the art in his spartan gallery and people would either recognize the genius and want to buy it or not.
One person who did want to buy was Sergei Shchukin, a Russian textile baron who, in the years leading up to the First World War, amassed one of the world’s most impressive collections of Picassos and Matisses, as well as Van Goghs, Monets, Cézannes, and Gauguins. Shchukin would open his collection to the public on Sundays, and as a result, many in Moscow fell in love with even the most radical modern art. Within a decade, clients like Shchukin helped turn Picasso into a major name. Other leading artists also signed contracts with Kahnweiler, including Georges Braque, André Derain, Juan Gris, and Maurice de Vlaminck – making Kahnweiler the top dealer in Paris. But in the days leading up to the First World War, competition was brewing.
As far as personality and approach, Kahnweiler had his counterpoint in Paul Rosenberg. Rosenberg was born in Paris, but also came from a similar middle-to-upper-class Jewish background. But whereas Kahnweiler liked to keep things low-key, Rosenberg enjoyed putting on big openings in his gallery, where he’d decorate the place with modernist furniture and play the role of gracious host.
Kahnweiler and Rosenberg maintained a professional relationship, but then war broke out in 1914. Being German, Kahnweiler knew he had to leave France. But he underestimated the situation. He thought the war would be over quickly and that his collection would be safe in storage. Instead, all of his assets were frozen and his massive collection – which included 132 Picassos, 135 Braques, and hundreds more from his other artists – was confiscated and put up for auction. To add insult to injury, the auction was conducted by none other than Rosenberg’s brother.
Without access to his bank account, Kahnweiler was unable to send Picasso the money that he owed him, nor could he grant him access to retrieve his paintings before they were confiscated. The whole situation ruined their friendship, at least for a while. It also resulted in Picasso turning to Rosenberg for representation. Unlike Kahnweiler, Rosenberg would do everything he could to promote Picasso, both in Europe and abroad.
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Untimely Ends
Back in New York, John Quinn wasn’t feeling so well. For years, Quinn had known something was wrong, but in 1919, he received a grim diagnosis that he had cancer, and likely had only six years left to live. By this time, Quinn had already amassed what was likely the biggest collection of modern art in America. His Upper-West Side apartment had rows of paintings stacked against the wall in every possible location. The only thing holding him back was space and money. He’d developed strong relationships with European dealers like Rosenberg. He’d even visited Picasso at his home.
The American press, however, continued to refer to modern art as dangerous and degenerate “bolshevik” art, the work of “madmen'' whose visions could only serve to corrupt wholesome American minds. And when Quinn finally passed away in 1924, the Metropolitan Museum still failed to own a single Van Gogh, Gauguin, or Toulouse-Lautrec – never mind a Picasso or a Matisse.
Upon Quinn’s death, he’d accumulated over 2,500 works of art. It was a staggering collection. His taste was so good that nearly all of them would be considered masterpieces today. But in 1924, they were of little discernible value to the lawyers dealing with his estate. He had no wife and no kids. And since no US museums were interested in modern art, he could only donate works to European museums like the Louvre. Still, many of them would end up on the auction block, being dispersed around the world.
Lillie P. Bliss, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and Mary Sullivan were three New York high society women who’d all been close to Quinn and appreciated modern art. They were rightfully dismayed at how the collection couldn’t remain intact, and in New York, as Quinn had hoped. It was shameful, and Bliss, Sullivan, and Rockefeller decided to do something about it by creating the Museum of Modern Art in 1929. A public home for modern art in America.
When searching for a director, they chose 27-year-old Alfred Barr, who’d developed one of America’s first undergraduate courses devoted to modern art. Once offered the job, Barr jumped at the opportunity. Together with his wife, Margaret Scolari, Barr proceeded to revolutionize the art world and take the Museum of Modern Art from the 12th floor of the Heckscher Building to a sleek, ultra-modern work of architectural art on 53rd Street.
Perhaps something in the air had changed, because the museum’s very first show was not only a hit with audiences, it succeeded with the critics as well. A sort of founding-fathers-of-modern-art show, it featured nearly a hundred paintings from four artists: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, and Seurat. It was a true blockbuster. Every day, the line to get in stretched around the corner onto Fifth Avenue.
There were a few things that made Barr’s exhibitions different. First, he didn’t do European “salon style,” which involved stacking pictures on the wall from floor to ceiling. His walls were white, and all paintings were spaced apart and displayed at eye level. This was completely new at the time.
Also, Barr still wanted to teach, to contextualize. So all of his shows came with texts and booklets that guided the viewer along and explained how the art they were seeing fit into the bigger picture of art history. You know those little descriptions on the wall next to the paintings? That was Barr’s idea.
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Modern Art Takes a Victory Lap
In the 1930s other cultural and political changes were happening too, which, in the long run, would make modern art look like a bold signifier of democracy and freedom.
When the Nazi party took over in Germany, modern art exhibitions began to get shut down, galleries were closed, and works were being taken off the walls in museums. A similar thing was happening in Stalin’s Russia, but in Germany, the term “degenerate art” was being used exactly the same way the term had been used in America. Only now, the works were being forcibly taken away by Gestapo agents.
As things got worse, and the Second World War spread across Europe, more and more artists fled to America. This too helped change the general conception of modern art in the US. All of a sudden, America was a safe haven for bold and daring artists, and people began to take pride in this idea.
The Museum of Modern Art was certainly helping as well. In particular, there was a landmark exhibition that focused solely on Vincent van Gogh. It was another huge accomplishment for Barr. As the text for the show, he only used quotes from Vincent’s letters to his brother Theo, and they guided the viewer through the tragic trajectory of his life. It was a genuinely moving experience and another huge success.
From early on, though, Barr wanted one artist in particular: Picasso. Like Quinn, Barr saw Picasso as a kind of Rosetta Stone for modern art. Picasso had worked in neoclassical, surrealism, cubism, and beyond. If the exhibition was properly curated, rather than seeing modern art as being madness, viewers would be able to chart the evolution and recognize how it was all directly connected to what came before.
But it wasn’t so easy. Not only was Picasso always going through some personal crisis – often involving his mistress or his wife, or both – Rosenberg was also a strict and demanding gatekeeper. After years of trying unsuccessfully to crack the American market for Picasso, Rosenberg wasn’t so eager to send another boatload of paintings across the Atlantic.
So, for practically ten years, Barr’s dream of a Picasso exhibition was postponed again and again. But in November 1939, the museum was planning to open a magnificent new headquarters on 53rd Street, and Barr was determined to make Picasso his grand opening exhibition.
This time, however, there was an even bigger complication: World War II. This dramatically changed Rosenberg’s plans. Not only did he need to get his family out of France, sending his most prized artworks to Barr’s museum was the perfect way to keep them safe.
As a result, Picasso: Forty Years of His Art was one of the greatest exhibitions the nation had ever seen. Picasso, Rosenberg, and many other European collectors and dealers came through and filled Barr’s exhibition with over 360 works from throughout Picasso’s career. It broke every attendance record. After New York, the show toured around the country. By 1943, it had reached 22 cities before it took a victory lap back in New York. In Boston, one conservative critic even had to admit, after seeing the Picasso show, everything else seemed boring.
The show wasn’t just a hit with the public and the press, it changed American culture. Fashion shops across the country were using Picasso imagery to spice up window displays, and designers were using the artist as inspiration for their next season’s look. For the next generation of artists, like Roy Lichtenstein and Jackson Pollock, seeing the Picasso show was foundational to their own artistic development.
It took decades, and many converging forces, but Picasso’s groundbreaking modern art eventually won over American audiences. Things haven’t been the same since.
---
New York lawyer John Quinn was one of the first champions of modern art in America. He helped launch the first comprehensive modern art exhibition and was responsible for removing the prohibitive tax on the import of modern art. When Quinn passed away, his immense collection inspired others to create the Museum of Modern Art. The museum’s first director, Alfred Barr, educated the public on the value and lineage of modern art and helped win over new viewers. His exhibitions on Van Gogh and Picasso won over the nation and helped set the stage for a new generation of modern artists.
January 12, 2023
Very interesting and filled with details but too long.
June 9, 2025
This is a great piece of historical work. It has wonderful insights into the troubled history of modern art in Europe and more importantly, in the United States. There are great stories of missed opportunities and frustrating failures as the movement was thriving and struggling. It is amazing how much we owe to the cruel indifference of history and the fanatical pursuits of those interested in Cubism, Dada, Fauvism, and other movements within modern art. It is well worth the read.
September 6, 2025
Je kan je weinig voorstellen bij het idee dat het MoMA in New York bijna kansloos ten onder ging bij gebrek aan belangstelling voor moderne kunst. Een tentoonstelling van Van Gogh, met veel werken in bruikleen van het latere Kröller-Müller Museum moest eraan te pas komen om de weg te plaveien voor artiesten als Picasso. Als je graag een boek leest over Picasso dan is dit niet het meest voor de hand liggende werk, omdat het vooral over de Amerikanen gaat die zijn werken naar de VS hebben gehaald.
February 7, 2024
4.5. The title is misleading because this isn’t so much about Picasso, although his work underpins the larger story. It is about how modern art came to America, the formation of the Museum of Modern Art, and the two individuals primarily responsible for both – John Quinn and Alfred Barr.
The first half the book focuses on Quinn. I am obsessed with him. Quinn was a corporate attorney who leveraged his prosperity and influence to transform American art and literature. This includes fighting to overturn censorship laws and a tariff that imposed a duty on contemporary foreign art (a tax that didn't include historic works simply because J.P. Morgan was a big buyer and had used his connections in Congress to have it excluded). Quinn supported Irish nationalist causes and was a patron of several writers, including James Joyce, W.B. Yeats, Joseph Conrad, and T.S. Eliot (and it seems their success can be largely attributed to his support). He was also an avid collector and until his death, held the largest collection of modern art in the US. Quinn’s dream was to build a new museum dedicated to modern art to house his collection, one that would rival The Met. Unfortunately, he died before that dream came to fruition.
The second half of the book focuses on what happened after his death. Quinn’s collection is mostly divided in an estate sale. MoMA is established four years later by acquaintances of his, including the wife of John D. Rockefeller Jr. (who initially refused to provide any financial support because of his opposition to the museum and strong dislike for modern art). Barr is appointed MoMA’s first director at age 27. He begins a decade long mission to bring together Quinn's collection and exhibit a retrospective on modern art and Cubism, with a focus on Picasso’s work.
The book contains a large cast of characters from the art world: dealers, gallery owners, collectors, curators, critics, and the artists themselves. It also takes place against the backdrop of WWI and WWII, which Hugh Eakin credits with piquing American interest in modern art (seen as an antithesis to the rise in communism and the Nazi Party) and has a lot of fascinating detail on art movements in France, Spain, Russia, and Germany. There are also a lot of really interesting facts — like that camouflage came from Cubism (!), highlighting the broader influence modern art movements had on war.
Highly recommend for any lover of art, history, and international affairs.
The first half the book focuses on Quinn. I am obsessed with him. Quinn was a corporate attorney who leveraged his prosperity and influence to transform American art and literature. This includes fighting to overturn censorship laws and a tariff that imposed a duty on contemporary foreign art (a tax that didn't include historic works simply because J.P. Morgan was a big buyer and had used his connections in Congress to have it excluded). Quinn supported Irish nationalist causes and was a patron of several writers, including James Joyce, W.B. Yeats, Joseph Conrad, and T.S. Eliot (and it seems their success can be largely attributed to his support). He was also an avid collector and until his death, held the largest collection of modern art in the US. Quinn’s dream was to build a new museum dedicated to modern art to house his collection, one that would rival The Met. Unfortunately, he died before that dream came to fruition.
The second half of the book focuses on what happened after his death. Quinn’s collection is mostly divided in an estate sale. MoMA is established four years later by acquaintances of his, including the wife of John D. Rockefeller Jr. (who initially refused to provide any financial support because of his opposition to the museum and strong dislike for modern art). Barr is appointed MoMA’s first director at age 27. He begins a decade long mission to bring together Quinn's collection and exhibit a retrospective on modern art and Cubism, with a focus on Picasso’s work.
The book contains a large cast of characters from the art world: dealers, gallery owners, collectors, curators, critics, and the artists themselves. It also takes place against the backdrop of WWI and WWII, which Hugh Eakin credits with piquing American interest in modern art (seen as an antithesis to the rise in communism and the Nazi Party) and has a lot of fascinating detail on art movements in France, Spain, Russia, and Germany. There are also a lot of really interesting facts — like that camouflage came from Cubism (!), highlighting the broader influence modern art movements had on war.
Highly recommend for any lover of art, history, and international affairs.
July 28, 2022
I was fascinated with the background information on how slow America was to embrace the post-impressionists as well as the influence of just a handful of people who eventually brought it to our attention. The research in this book is impressive and detailed without getting bogged down. I thought I had a fair understanding of modern art but learned just how little of the history I really knew. The author provides us with an even more passionate respect for the work of these early 20th century groundbreakers!
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