Museum of Modern Art(MoMA), New York City, established and incorporated in 1929. It is privately supported. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., was its first director. Operating at first in rented galleries, the museum specialized in loan shows of contemporary European and American art. Its present collection represents one of the finest groups of modern and contemporary art in the world, and its 1999 merger with P.S. 1, a contemporary art space in Long Island City, Queens, gave MoMA a greater connection to avant-garde art.