Iris Barry (March 25, 1895[1] - December 22, 1969) was an English poet, novelist, and film historian.[2]
Iris Barry (1895-1969). Courtesy Wikipedia.
| Iris Barry | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Iris Sylvia Crump March 25, 1895 Birmingham, England |
| Died |
December 22, 1969 (aged 74) Marseille, France |
| Nationality | British; American |
| Occupation | film critic |
| Known for | curator at the Museum of Modern Art |
Life[]
Youth and education[]
Barry was born Iris Sylvia Symes Crump, in the Washwood Heath district of Birmingham, England, the daughter of Annie (Symes) and Alfred Charles Crump.[1]
She studied at the Ursiline convent, Verviers, Belgium.[3]
Career[]
Barry's poems were published by Harold Monro's magazine, Poetry and Drama, which brought her to the attention of Ezra Pound, who wrote her asking to see more of her work, leading to an extensive correspondence. Pound helped publish her publish her work in the American literary magazines Poetry (magazine) and Others: A magazine of the new verse.[2]
After Barry moved to London at his urging, Pound introduced her to his circle, including T.S. Eliot, Ford Madox Ford, Wyndham Lewis, and others of his cicle. From 1918 to 1921 she lived with Lewis.[2] She bore him two children, a son in 1919 and a daughter in 1920.[3]
In 1923 she met Alan Porter, assistant literary editor of The Spectator, and published a poem in the magazine in July 1923. During their engagement The Spectator also favorably reviewed her first novel, Splashing into Society. She and Porter were married on October 8, 1923.[4]
She began writing film criticism for The Spectator and Vogue in 1924, and soon became the most widely read film critic of the 1920's. From 1925 to 1930 she was film critic for The Daily Mail. She authored a popular book on moviegoing Let's Go to the Pictures, in 1926.[5]
The London Film Society, the earlist of its kind, was launched in October 1925; Barry was a founder along with cinema owner Sidney Bernstein]], film director Adrian Brunel, well-connected enthusiast Ivor Montagu, and fellow film critic Walter Mycroft.
In 1930 Barry emigrated to the United States.[3] Her marriage to Alan Porter did not long survive the move.[3]
She wrote the scholarly classic D.W. Griffith: American film master (1940), and became a regular book reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune. She became an American citizen in 1941, and married John E. Abbott.
She died 22 December 1969, in Marseilles, France.[3]
Museum of Modern Art[]
Barry may be best remembered as the inaugural film curator at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which had opened in 1929. She founded the film study department in 1932,[3] with an archival collection of rare films, a library of film-related books, and a film circulation program. She also collected films.
Cinema studies scholar Haidee Wasson argues that under Barry's direction the MoMA's Film Library, the ear;oest American institution of film art, created the cultural and intellectual climate that allowed "selected films to become visible to an emergent public under the rubrics of art and history," served as a “promulgator of discourses about cultural value and productive leisure,” and consequently defined “… what objects and media matter within the politics of cultural value and visual knowledge”.[6]
Wasson further details MoMA’s director Alfred Barr and Iris Barry's continuous struggle to affirm the cultural status and value of cinema to powerful museum benefactors and to win over Hollywood film studios’ support in order to elevate cinema’s status to that of a unique American art form.[7]
Wasson also elaborates on MoMA's Film Library’s effort to create modern audience for art cinema by employing overt disciplinary strategies. The staff of the Film Library, and sometimes Barry herself, carefully monitored the spectator’s behavior in the cinematic salon, sanctioning improper conduct (e.g. rowdiness, excessive chatter or laughter during screening etc.) by, at times, even terminating the film screening altogether. These strategies, Wasson argues, sought to mold a new form of cinematic audience by instilling the values of “educated film viewing and studious attention”.[8]
Through her work at MoMA's Film Library, Barry has earned recognition as a founding figure of the film preservation movement alongside Henri Langlois and Ernest Lindgren[9]
On October 10, 2014, MoMA presented an illustrated talk by Robert Sitton, author of Lady in the Dark: Iris Barry and the Art of Film .[10]
Recognition[]
In 1949, Barry was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French government, in recognition of her services to French cinema.[3]
Publications[]
Novels[]
- Splashing into Society. London: Constable, 1923; New York: Dutton, 1923.
- The Last Enemy. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1929.
- Here is Thy Victory. London: Elkin Mathews & Marrot, 1930.
Non-fiction[]
- Let's Go to the Pictures. London: Chatto & Windus, 1926;
- published in U.S. as Let's Go to the Movies. New York: Payson & Clarke, 1926; New York: Arno, 1972.
- Portrait of Lady Mary Montagu. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1928.
- A Short Survey of the Film in America. New York: Museum of Modern Art, [1937?]
- The Art of the Motion Picture, 1895-1941. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1945.
- D.W. Griffith: American film master. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1965.
Iris Barry - At The Ministry
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[11]
See also[]
References[]
- Robert Sitton, Lady in the Dark: Iris Barry and the art of film. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.
Notes[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sitton, 11 Google Books, Web, May 23, 2015.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos & Stephen Adams, Ezra Pound Encyclopedia, Greenwood, 2005, 19. Google Books, Web, May 23, 2015.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Barbara Sicherman; Carol Hurd Green (January 1980). Notable American Women: The Modern Period : a Biographical Dictionary. Harvard University Press. pp. 56–58. ISBN 978-0-674-62733-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=CfGHM9KU7aEC&pg=PA57. Retrieved 24 June 2013.
- ↑ Sitton, Lady in the Dark: Iris Barry and the art of film 83. Google Books, Web, May 23, 2015.
- ↑ Geoff Brown, Film criticism takes wing in the 1920s: Iris Barry and company", ScreenOnline, British Film Institute. Web, May 23, 2015.
- ↑ Wasson, H. (2005). "Museum Movies: The Museum of Modern Art and the Birth of Art Cinema." University of California Press, p.7
- ↑ Wasson, H. (2005). "Museum Movies: The Museum of Modern Art and the Birth of Art Cinema." University of California Press, pp. 110-149
- ↑ Wasson, H. (2005). "Museum Movies: The Museum of Modern Art and the Birth of Art Cinema." University of California Press, pp. 168-182
- ↑ Houston, Penelope. (1994) Keepers of the frame: the film archives. British Film Institute
- ↑ MoMA Member Calendar, October 2014
- ↑ Search results = au:Iris Barry, WorldCat, OCLC OnlineComputer Library Center Inc. Web, May 23, 2015.
External links[]
- Poem
- Iris Barry in The New Poetry: An anthology, 1917: "The Fledgling," "Impression," "Study," "Domestic," "Double," "Town-Mouse," "Enough Has Been Said of Sunset" "Impression," "Lamentation," "Virgin Moon," "An Un-Posted Letter," "Nocturne"
- Books
- Iris Barry at Amazon.com
- About
- "Film criticism takes wing in the 1920s: Iris Barry and company" at the British Film Institute
- "Iris Barry: The secret heroine of the cinema" by Richard Brody, New Yorker
- "Iris Barry: Re-View" at the Museum of Modern Art.
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