author
Iris Barry
1895–1969
A sharp-eyed critic who helped persuade the world that movies deserved to be taken seriously as art, she went on to shape one of the most influential film collections in the United States. Her writing and curatorial work helped lay the foundations of modern film culture.
1 Audiobook
Splashing Into Society
by Iris Barry
About the author
Born in Birmingham, England, in 1895, Iris Barry became one of the most important early voices in film criticism. In the 1920s she wrote about cinema with unusual seriousness and intelligence, and she helped found the London Film Society, a key venue for bringing ambitious and international films to new audiences.
After moving to New York, she played a central role in the creation of the Film Library at the Museum of Modern Art in 1935 and became its first curator. There she worked to collect, preserve, and circulate films at a time when many people still saw them as disposable entertainment rather than an art form worth saving.
Barry was also a novelist and poet, but her lasting legacy is in film history. By championing cinema in print and building institutions that treated it with care, she helped change how films were studied, shown, and remembered. She died on December 22, 1969.