Barbara S. Moore

Barbara S. Moore, who had lived in East Hampton since 2002, died in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 28 with her husband, children, and beloved springer spaniel by her side. She was 66 and had ovarian cancer.

Mrs. Moore and her husband, Jonathan Moore, had visited East Hampton in the 1970s when they lived in New York City. After spending time in Nantucket, they decided to move part-time to East Hampton, where they also had friends from Washington, D.C. The couple, who were married for 44 years, lovingly restored and rehabilitated their house on Three Mile Harbor, which had been moved by barge to its present Freetown location in the 1840s from its original location on Settler’s Landing. It was from one of the earliest settlements and was built as temporary housing, primarily on timbers from ships that brought the original English settlers to the area.

Born Barbara Sloan in Trenton on Jan. 4, 1948, she graduated from Trenton High School. She went on to Vassar College, where she was magna cum laude and received a Bachelor of Arts in art history, and the Ecole du Louvre, the University of Michigan, where she received a master’s degree in art history, and George Washington University Law School, where she was a member of the Law Review. She never did practice law. Instead, she devoted herself to museum education, which she considered a critical link between scholarship and the public mind, her family said.

For 14 years she was the curator of education at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Her family said she changed museum culture by sending full-color illustrated materials to teachers instead of photocopies, and treated exhibitions with joint installation and interpretation planning.

She was credited as being one of the three scouts who brought the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition to the Corcoran in 1989. “After the Corcoran’s scorching rebuke for canceling the exhibition, Barbara stole time on weekends over the next three years to write a dark parody of the political class’s indefensible attack on homosexuality,” her family wrote in an obituary. They also said she “played a key role in the interoperation of ‘The Black Image in Western Art’ exhibition through labels, wall texts, music, and film that rested on passages from black speeches, letters, poems, and songs that challenged standard readings of race in the images on view.”

From 1992 through 2013, Mrs. Moore served as head of writing and deputy head of the education division at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. She launched a series of “One-Hour” sheets that offered short, penetrating notes on key works in various collection areas, creative family guides, and an array of content for the museum’s website. Among them is the entry on “Lavender Mist” by Jackson Pollock. A portion of the research was conducted at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs.

Mrs. Moore was known for her love of Japanese and French-designed clothing. “She wore flats with everything from jeans to evening gowns on the principle that comfort was the essential element of luxurious style,” her family wrote. She also believed that her education, art, and her family were “the keys to her profoundly satisfying life.” She took great joy in seeing her daughters, Maggie Moore Melvin of Alexandria, Va., and Lucy Moore of San Francisco find their own direction in life.

Her hope was that those who knew her will honor her through gifts to their favorite education scholarship funds, or Planned Parenthood, 434 West 33rd Street, New York City 10001, or Heifer International, 1 World Avenue, Little Rock, Ark. 72202.

A memorial service will be announced at a later date.