Unites States Between the Wars•WWI - WWII•Social Realism versus Abstraction

•Abstraction (Individualism)

–European immigrants

–Armory Show 1913

–Alfred Barr, Alfred Stieglitz, Joseph Levy

–MOMA

–Cubism, Expressionism, Surrealism

•Social realism (Masses)

–New Deal (Roosevelt)

–WPA

–Depression, Fascism, Communism

•Jazz Age (Harlem Renaissance)

–Alain Locke

–Revival of African forms

Social Causes Jacob Riis, 5 Cents a Spot, 1889

• Documentary Photography

• Lower East Side, NY

• “How the Other Half Lives”

Dorothea Lange, White Angel Breadline, 1933

Great Depression

WPA

Pictorial

Straight

American Social Realist PaintingGeorge Bellows, Cliff Dwellers, 1913

• “Ashcan School”

• Robert Henri• The Eight• Real/Modern• Poor Man’s

Impressionism

John Sloan, Backyards, Greenwich Village, 1914

• Ash Can School

• Lower Classes

• New York Tenement Apts.

Bellows, Boxing at Sharkey’s, 1901

• Snap shots of the everyday

RegionalistsGrant Wood, American Gothic, 1930

• Iowa

• Dentist and Sister

• Dutch/Puritan

• Gothic

• Iconography?

• “Americana”

Wood, Young Corn, 1931

• RegionalistModernist Landscape

Edward Hopper, Early Sunday Morning, 1930

• N.Y.

• Psyche of City

Edward Hopper, Carolina Morning,1955

• Muted colors

• Capture a mood

• Isolation

• Loneliness

• Anxiety

• boredom

Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942

Muted colors

Capture a mood

Isolation

loneliness

Anxiety

boredom

Hopper, Room in New York , 1942

Thomas Hart Benton, City Building, (American Today Series), 1930

• Regionalism

• American Worker

• Caricature

Benton, The Art of the West, 1932

• American West

• Masculinity

• “American Hero”

John Sloan, Backyards, Greenwich Village, 1914

• Ash Can School

• Lower Classes

• New York Tenement Apts.

• Poor Man’s Impressionism

Aaron Douglas, Aspects of Negro Life, From Slavery through Reconstruction, 1934

Harlem Renaissance

Jazz Age

Alain Locke (philosopher)

Recover African forms in art

Geometric Symbolism

Noah’s Ark, 1927In an African Setting, 1934

Jacob Lawrence, No. 1, From the Migration of the Negro Series, 1940-41

• Post-slavery migration north.

• Series

• Hard edge

Motley, Black Belt, 1934, The Nightlife, 1943

•Chicago’s South Side

•Black Experience

•Psychedelic colors

American ModernismAlfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, 1907

• 291 Gallery• “Straight

Photography”• Balance of shapes

and forms

Stieglitz, 5th Avenue, 1910

“Pictorial Photography”

Imogen Cunningham, Two Callas, 1939

• San Francisco

• Straight photography

• Pictorial

• f.64 Gallery (camera f-stop)

Cunningham, Datura, n.d., Three Vegetables, n.d.

American ModernismGeorgia O’Keefe Jack in the Pulpit IV, 1920’s

• Records flowers

• Precisionism (style)

– Essence of Object

– Sharp lines

– Intense & pure color

• Misinterpretations

O’KeefeBlack Iris, 1924Music in Pink and Blue, 1923

Radiator Building, Night, NY, 1927 City Night, 1926

Mardsen Hartley, Portrait of a German Officer, 1914

• Armory Show

• European Influence

• Independence

• War Motif Series (12)

• Berlin

• Friend/Lover

• Karl von Freyburg

• Fragments

• Individual iconography

Hartley, Still Life, 1911 / Chinese Sea Horse, 1941

DADA c. 1913-1925, Marcel Duchamp, Urinal (Fountain), 1917(1950)

• Response to WWI.

• Tristian Tziara & Hugo Ball

• French = hobby horse; Rumanian = yes

• Zurich, Paris, Germany, New York.

• Nonsense, no manifesto

• State of mind

• ANTI-ART OBJECTS–Readymade/Already made

–Loses functionality

• AUTOMATISM

• Chance

• Choice

• End result of contradiction

Marcel Duchamp, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors Even (large glass), 1915-23

• New York Dada

• Alfred Stieglitz

• 291 gallery

• Circulatory systems

• “mechanamorphic”

• Chance

SurrealismSurrealism Paris, 1922.International in 1936. Andre Breton: Manifesto (associated with dada)Born out of a desire for positive action. MythsPrimitivismDream AnalysisChanceChoice (Free association) Spontaneous ActionMetonymy (metonimic)

Rene Magritte,The Human

Condition, 1928

• Poststructuralism

• Sarte, Benjamin

• Painting as Representation

• Reality as representation

Magritte, The Treachery (of perfidy) of Image, 1928-29

• “This is not a pipe”

• Reality/Representation

Joseph CornellUntitled (The Hotel Eden), 1945

• Shadow Boxes– 12-20”

• Surrealism– Julian Levy Gallery

• Assemblage• Discarded objects• Nostalgia• Random Juxtaposition• Search for the self• Caged Bird: sublimation,

memory, and peace.

Cornell, Habitat Group for Shooting

Gallery, 1943 / Solar Set, 1958

Cornell, Toward the Blue Peninsula, 1953

Nostalgia

Mystery

Fantasy

Cornell, Untitled (Medici Princess), 1948 / Untitled (Penny Arcade Portrait of Lauren Bacall), 1942

Isamu Noguchi, Kouros, 1944-5 / Remembrance 1981

• Biomorphic Surrealism

• Constantin Brancusi

• Zen

• Contemplation of parts of the whole

20th Century SculptureConstantin Brancusi, Bird in Space, 1925

The Newborn, 1915

Brancusi and Noguchi

Noguchi, Kouros / Greek Kouros

Noguchi, Water Garden, 1963

• Japanese Zen Garden

• Reflection/ Contemplation

• Industry/ Nature

Water garden (details)