The Armory Show was a stunning exhibition of nearly 1,400 objects that included both American and European works, but it is best known for introducing the American public to European avant-garde paintings and sculpture. One hundred years later, it is hard to imagine what it would have been like to see works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marcel Duchamp, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne, and Vincent Van Gogh, all together for the very first time.

The International Exhibition of Modern Art took place in the 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Ave. between 25th and 26th St. Its enormous drill hall provided over 30,000 square feet of display space for the estimated 1,400 works on view. The hall was divided into 18 octagonal galleries with burlap covered panels. The space was decorated with greenery, pine trees, flags and bunting, and yellow streamers that formed a tent-like cap to the exhibition space.

About half the works in the exhibition were American and half were European, and though only a handful of artists are remembered for their participation in the Armory Show, 300 participated, from artists who are considered iconic masters today to those who are no longer recognizable. The exhibition created a huge sensation in New York. It traveled to Chicago and Boston, and was even more controversial in Chicago, where students burned paintings by Matisse in effigy. The exhibition’s travel turned it into a national event, and the polemical responses to the show have come to represent a turning point in the history of American art.