Iris Barry

Born in 1895, Iris Barry became an influential writer and critic at a time when film was still fighting for artistic respect. In the 1920s, she helped establish the London Film Society, an important venue for serious film appreciation and discussion.

She later moved to the United States and became the first curator of the film department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1935. Her work there helped build one of the earliest major museum programs devoted to cinema, shaping how films were preserved, studied, and presented to the public.

Remembered as both a critic and a curator, Barry was one of the key figures who helped define film as an art form. She died in 1969, leaving a legacy that still echoes through film archives, museums, and criticism.