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How did “The Starry Night” get to MoMA? Lillie P. Bliss, one of the three female founders of The Museum of Modern Art, was a determined art collector. When she passed away just two years after MoMA opened, she gave a bulk of her art to this new museum with a vision to support artists in a future no one could yet imagine. — All photos from The Museum of Modern Art, New York [1] Vincent van Gogh. “The Starry Night.” Saint Rémy, June 1889. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (by exchange) [2] The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West Fifty-Third Street, 1939. Photograph by Eliot Elisofon [3] Visitors at The Museum of Modern Art, c. 1939–40 [4] Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, one of the three founders of The Museum of Modern Art, 1922. Rockefeller Archive Center [5] Mary Quinn Sullivan, one of the three founders of The Museum of Modern Art, n.d. [6] Lillie P. Bliss. c. 1924. [7] Lillie P. Bliss. c. 1904. [8] Paul Cézanne. “Still Life with Apples.” 1895-98. Lillie P. Bliss Collection [9 + 15] Installation view of “Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern,” on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York from November 17, 2024, through March 29, 2025. [10] The music room in Bliss’s apartment, 1001 Park Avenue, c. 1929–1931. [11] Installation view of the exhibition “The Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934.” May 14, 1934–September 12, 1934. [12] Installation view of the exhibition “Memorial Exhibition: The Collection of the Late Lizzie P. Bliss.” May 17, 1931–October 6, 1931. Photo: Peter A. Juley [13] “Alfred H. Barr, Jr.” c. 1930. [14] Announcement of the acquisition of