A few months ago, we raved about Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art — MoMA’s ambitious retrospective on women’s legacy in the art world, covering both the museum’s own history and the work of over 300 pioneering female artists. Here, Museum Archivist Michelle Elligott — who contributed to the anthology an eloquent essay titled ‘Modern Women: A Partial History’ — talks about the project and the impact some of these women had both on MoMA itself and on the art world in general.

From the very beginning, MoMA really was the idea of three remarkable women — Lillie Bliss, Abby Aldrich Rockerfeller and Mary Quinn Sullivan.” ~ Michelle Elligott

Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art features essays by nearly 50 of today’s most compelling art and gender writers, including MoMA curators as well as outside scholars, and covers an ambitious spectrum of artists, from iconic avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren to pioneering modernist designer and architect Ray Eames to the great performance artist Marina Abramovic.