A major renovation is currently underway at MoMA (as the museum is usually called), starting in the summer of 2002 and ending by summer 2005, in time for the museum's 75th anniversary. The expansion will allow MoMA to display more of its permanent collection, as well as mount even larger temporary exhibits. During the reconstruction, the museum will move to Long Island City in Queens, in a spot known as MoMaQNS , 45-20 33rd St at Queens Blvd (subway #7 to 33rd St stop; tel 212/708-9400; inquire what's on view when).
The collection is indeed impressive, offering one of the finest and most complete accounts of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century art you're likely to find, with a permanent collection of over 100,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, architectural models and design objects, as well as a world-class film archive. Painting highlights include Post-Impressionist masterworks, such as Cézanne 's Bather , Monet 's Water Lilies and paintings by Gauguin, Seurat and Van Gogh , including his celebrated Starry Night . Cubism is represented particularly by Derain, Braque and Picasso whose Demoiselles d'Avignon , a jagged, sharp and then revolutionary clash of tones and planes, is held to be the embodiment of Cubist principles.
The late-modern and contemporary painting collection has a more American slant, with paintings such as Wyeth 's Christina's World , and works by Hopper , including House by the Railroad and New York Movie , potent and atmospheric pieces that give a bleak account of 1930s and 1940s American life. Equally notable are more abstract pieces, such as Gorky 's Miró-like doodles, and the anguished scream of Bacon 's No. 7 from 8 Studies for a Portrait .
Some of the biggest draws are the paintings from the New York School - large-scale canvases meant to be viewed from a distance. The finest examples are the paintings of Pollock and de Kooning - wild and, in Pollock's case, textured patterns with no clear beginning or end. MoMA also features several well-known examples of Pop Art, including Warhol 's Gold Marilyn Monroe and the familiar Campbell Soup canvas.
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