Museum of Modern Art Australia

The Museum of Modern Art Australia (MOMAA) was opened by Australian art patron John Reed in 1958 in Tavistock Place, off 376 Flinders Street, Melbourne. The Museum operated from 1958 to 1966.

Background

In July 1938 John and Sunday Reed were active in the formation of the Contemporary Art Society to promote modernist art in opposition to the prevalent conservatives of Australian art.  Through the CAS John met a young artist, (Sir) Sidney Nolan, to whom the Reeds gave friendship and financial support and from 1941 housing him at their property, the former dairy farm 'Heide' that they had purchased in 1934, until their estrangement in 1947. Other artists in their circle were Albert Tucker and his wife Joy Hester, Arthur Boyd, John Perceval, Danila Vassilieff and the writer Michael Keon.  

John abandoned his legal practice in 1943 and by the end of World War II he and Sunday had become the major supporters of modern art in Australia, supporting several artists with regular stipends. They revived the Melbourne branch of CAS and its Gallery of Contemporary Art early in the 1950s, and their association with artists and writers—the Heidi Circle—expanded to include Charles Blackman, Barrett Reid, Laurence Hope and Mirka Mora.  

The Gallery

In 1958 with the assistance of restaurateur, art patron and close friend Georges Mora and using their own funds the Reeds transformed the CAS gallery, where George's wife Mirka had exhibited in August the year before, into the 'Museum of Modern Art (and Design) of Australia' (MOMAA), modelled on MoMA in New York, with John as its director. Daughter of Myer Emporium director Sir Norman Myer, Pamela Warrender, whom Mora came to know through their visits to his Balzac Restaurant, became chair of the museum.

Art that they had collected themselves, figurative, abstract, expressionist and realist, formed the basis of the Museum's collection and was drawn upon for some of the exhibitions held there, some of which were landmark. In 1961 Albert Tucker held ‘The Formative Years, 1940 – 1945’ at which important Tucker works, Modern Evil, No. 2 (1943), Figure 6, Modern Evil, No. 6 (1944), Figure 7, Modern Evil, No. 27 (1946) and Modern Evil, No. 28,Figure 8 (1946), were displayed with other iconic works by him such as The Futile City (1940). The Sydney Pop Art trio the Annandale Realists, Mike Brown, Colin Lanceley and Ross Crothall showed there in 1962.

Closure

When financial difficulties had become insurmountable, in April 1965 John resigned. The enterprise continued informally at Heidi while its new, modernist buildings were completed between 1964 and 1967 to become Heide II which, in their old age, the Reeds sold to the Victorian Government for the establishment of a public art museum and park, Heide Museum of Modern Art.