One of our favorite new blogs at the moment is Letters of Note–a website dedicated to collecting correspondence to and from history’s most famous and interesting people.

This particular letter came from Alfred Barr, the first director of the MOMA in New York City, who sent it to Andy Warhol in 1956 in rejection of a gift Warhol had offered the museum.

Click through to see the text version of the letter.

It’s awesome to see old forms of communication finding a forum online; especially in the form of such an ingenious project as this.

Visit Letters of Note!

THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
NEW YORK 19
THE MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

11 WEST 53rd STREET
TELEPHONE: CIRCLE 5-8900
CABLES: MODERNART, NEW YORK

October 18, 1956

Dear Mr. Warhol:

Last week our Committee on the Museum Collections held its first meeting of the fall season and had a chance to study your drawing entitled Shoe which you so generously offered as a gift to the Museum.

I regret that I must report to you that the Committee decided, after careful consideration, that they ought not to accept it for our Collection.

Let me explain that because of our severely limited gallery and storage space we must turn down many gifts offered, since we feel it is not fair to accept as a gift a work which may be shown only infrequently.

Nevertheless, the Committee has asked me to pass on to you their thanks for your generous expression of interest in our Collection.

Sincerely,

(Signed)

Alfred H. Barr, Jr.
Director of Museum Collections

Mr. Andy Warhol
242 Lexington Avenue
New York, New York

AHB:bj

P.S. The drawing may be picked up from the museum at your convenience.