Moma Permanent Collection

The Permanent Collection at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York is one of the most influential collections of modern and contemporary art in the world. It includes landmark works such as Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory, and masterpieces by Matisse, Mondrian, Pollock, Warhol, and Rothko.

Spanning painting, sculpture, photography, film, design, and media art, the collection traces the development of modern art from the late 19th century to today and plays a defining role in shaping the global art historical canon.

Each room offers a closer look at a unique topic—from the life’s work of a single artist to a specific moment in time or a shared creative spark. The museum is always refreshing these spaces with new combinations of artworks, so there’s constantly something fresh to discover. It’s a reminder that the collection is full of endless histories just waiting to be explored.

Pablo Picasso – foundational works of Cubism, including Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

Here are 10 top artists represented in MoMA’s permanent collection, widely considered central to its identity and to modern art history:

Vincent van Gogh – The Starry Night, one of the museum’s most iconic paintings

Henri Matisse – key modernist paintings and cut-outs

Salvador Dalí – Surrealism, notably The Persistence of Memory

Jackson Pollock – Abstract Expressionism and drip paintings

Mark Rothko – Color Field painting and immersive abstraction

Andy Warhol – Pop Art, celebrity culture, and mass production

Piet Mondrian – geometric abstraction and De Stijl

Claude Monet – Impressionism and late water lily works

Georgia O’Keeffe – American modernism and abstraction rooted in nature