The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in Manhattan is regarded as the most influential of its kind in the world. It plays a significant role in culling and building modernist art and boasts of unmatched collection spanning different disciplines such as drawing, paintings, design and architecture, prints, photography, sculpture, film, electronic media and books. It houses more than 300,000 literature and journals and 70,000 individual files of several artists.

The Museum of Modern Art was conceptualized by the wife of John Rockefeller Jr., Abby Rockefeller, and two others in 1928. The museum started out very simply in small spaces in Manhattan when it opened to the public in 1929. It quickly became the foremost modern art museum in New York City and the first art space in the city to showcase European modernism. The museum?s first big break happened in November of 1929 through a loan exhibition of the works of Van Gogh, Cezanne, Seurat and Gauguin. The Museum of Modern Art got its international popularity through a Picasso retrospective which provided a foundation for future scholars in reinterpreting Picasso. The extensiveness of the works found in the Museum of Modern Art is arguably the largest in the world including the iconic painting The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh (1889) and Yoko Ono?s Wish Tree found in the museum Sculpture Garden.

The architecture and design of the museum has underwent several renovations, the latest being in 1997 by Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi. The new design features granite and glass as the primary materials. Critics are divided over the new design with some saying it?s a great contemporary work of art while some did not like how the museum was laid out. After the renovation, it also became one of the most costly museums to visit in New York with a $20 entrance fee. Despite these controversies, the Museum of Modern Art is undoubtedly one of the most frequented museums in New York attracting approximately 2.1 million visitors per year.