The Art Lending Service: Building an Audience for Modern Art

December 4, 2008 12:30 p.m. In 1948, the Junior Council of The Museum of Modern Art, led by Blanchette Rockefeller, met to discuss the creation of an art lending library that would function as a forum to educate young collectors about modern art and that would allow the public to rent works of art. This early conception of an art lending library became the Art Lending Service (ALS) in 1951. In addition to renting artworks in the lending library, the ALS organized temporary exhibitions in the Museum's Penthouse Restaurant. Many of the Penthouse Exhibitions included works by emerging artists who would later become well known. This lecture focuses on the history of the ALS and will include discussion of archival objects such as photographs, brochures, invitations to events, sales cards, lending cards, and other related objects. MacKenzie Bennett (MA, Courtauld Institute of Art) is an assistant archivist in the Museum Archives at MoMA.