The Modern Art Society is formally founded by Betty Pollak Rauh, Peggy Frank Crawford and Rita Rentschler Cushman. The three were encouraged by M.W. Warburg and Alfred H. Barr of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Each had very little museum experience and operated out of a makeshift office that consisted of “a letter file and a portable typewriter” and whichever living room was available. That moving office soon transitioned to a gallery space in the basement of the Cincinnati Art Museum.