From the start in 1953, the Friends of Moderna Museet has donated more than 250 works to the collection, including Robert Rauschenberg’s Monogram, which has become an emblem of the entire Museum. When Moderna Museet opened on Skeppsholmen in 1958, a new museum for 20th-century art had been discussed for decades. The Friends of Moderna Museet was founded in 1953 and began collecting works for a future museum of modern art. The Friends also supported the first director of Moderna Museet, Otte Sköld, in his endeavour to provide a new home for the Nationalmuseum’s collection of 20th-century art. From the very beginning, the association has contributed many significant works to Moderna Museet’s collection.

One group that has been vital to Moderna Museet’s photography collection is the Friends of Fotografiska Museet (FMV). In the 1940s, there was intense debate concerning a museum of photography in Sweden. This eventually prompted the first-ever photographic exhibition at the Nationalmuseum, Modern Swedish Photographic Art, in 1944. The actual process of founding the FMV took off in connection with the exhibition Svenskar sedda av 11 fotografer (Swedes as seen by 11 photographers) in 1962-63 at Moderna Museet.  In conjunction with the exhibition, Foto magazine invited the public to an open discussion, and the FMV was formed in spring 1963. A preliminary board was appointed, with Ulf Hård af Segerstad as its chairman; Carl-Adam Nycop was the first elected chairman. The aim was to build a network of people working towards the common goal of promoting photography. Over the years, the FMV organised numerous photographic exhibitions and also began to build a collection of photography, which was included in a donation to Moderna Museet in 1971. In the course of the nearly 30 years when it had a separate department at the Museum called Fotografiska Museet, the FMV donated some 400 works to the collection. At the membership meeting on 2 March, 1998, it was decided that the FMV should merge with the Friends of Moderna Museet, as part of a major reorganisation of the Museum.