Modern Art Arrived in America by Way of Exhibitions and Promotions by
"In another fifty years we volition know more than about the forties; it takes the perspective of ane century to know another. Yet in a century the violence of the forties will nonetheless not accept lost its pain and ugliness, and information technology will however seem wonderful that out of the homo spirit then much fine art could exist made in a globe where the artist was far more often the victim rather than the honored benefactor of the people." —Guy Davenport
The fine art of the 1940s, a turbulent decade that in many respects reshaped the world, is the focus of this exhibition drawn entirely from the Museum's great holdings from the menses. Art of the Forties features works of painting, sculpture, drawings, prints, photography, architecture, design, and flick. Viewed from the perspective of the 1990s and the dramatic changes in Primal Europe, the exhibition surveys the creative climate of the Western world during World War Ii and the first years of the Cold War.
Comprising approximately 275 works, Art of the Forties features masterpieces and popular favorites alongside objects that have rarely been seen in recent years by approximately 200 artists. Arranged thematically, the installation integrates the various mediums in sections that reflect the history, development of ideas, and development of imagery of the decade. From the Surrealism of wartime Europe to the recognition of Latin American fine art to the flowering of Abstruse Expressionism in America, the exhibition also illustrates the agile role The Museum of Modernistic Art played throughout the decade.
During the forties, the Museum sponsored many of the European refugee artists, acquired pregnant works labeled "degenerate" by the Nazis, and established a fund for the buy of Latin American fine art. The Museum contracted with the United States Regime to create an Armed Services Program, through which it hosted a Thou.I. bottle, offered art therapy to veterans, and circulated inspirational exhibitions, most notably Edward Steichen'south Road to Victory (1942). In addition, through its annual Useful Objects exhibitions, the Museum non only emphasized good pattern but also brash the public equally to which materials should be reserved for the state of war try.
Art of the Forties begins with images of war and the American Depression, starting with Jose Clemente Orozco's Dive Bomber and Tank (1940), a 6-function fresco commissioned by the Museum afterward the fall of France. Pablo Picasso's Charnel House (1944–45) and Pavel Tchelitchew's Hide and Seek (1940–42) allude to the horrors of the state of war. Military photographs document air battles and concentration camps, while Pecker Brandt's paradigm of an air raid shelter and Dorothea Lange'south portrait of Japanese internees convey the plight of civilians at home and abroad. Posters carrying anti-poverty slogans and state of war propaganda vividly evoke the prevailing mood.
When the refugee artists arrived in the The states, they brought with them many of the guiding models of modernism, joining the abstraction of the old globe with the spirit of the new. Piet Mondrian's ode to New York City, Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942–43), and a model of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe'south Farnsworth House (1945–51) begin a department on geometric abstraction. With these are shown drawings for Rockefeller Center murals by Fernand Leger, some other refugee, photographs past Harry Callahan and Paul Strand, Alexander Calder's Constellation with Ruby-red Object (1943), and Henri Matisse's illustrated book Jazz (1947). The biomorphic trend in brainchild found widespread expression in piece of furniture design, as seen in works past Frederick Kiesler and Isamu Noguchi. The powerful influence of the Surrealists is shown in a remarkably rich selection of paintings and sculptures by Louise Bourgeois, Max Ernst, Andre Masson, Matta, Joan Miro, and Yves Tanguy.
The worlds of compages and pattern were forever changed past the prodigious new materials and technical developments necessitated by the war. Charles Eames's system for molding plywood plant manifestations in such objects equally a glider nose and chairs. Tupperware was introduced and soon became a household word. Lightweight aluminum made possible the mass product of objects ranging from cocktail shakers and typewriters to racing cars; Buckminster Fuller even envisioned prefabricated aluminum dwellings to meet the postwar housing demand.
A gallery devoted to postwar figuration includes portraits and figure studies by Francis Salary, Jean Dubuffet, Frida Kahlo, and Henry Moore. Photographs of prominent political, cultural, and literary figures of the period predominate, including Irving Penn's Nathan and Mencken (1947), Arnold Newman's Robert Oppenheimer (1949), and W. Eugene Smith'southward Dr. Albert Schweitzer (1949). Henri Cartier-Bresson'due south portrait of Jean-Paul Sartre (1946) evokes the doctrine of Existentialism and its popular interpretation by artists, notably in Alberto Giacometti's agonizingly spare sculptures.
The final galleries focus on the vital interaction that helped to kindle America'southward outset internationally recognized motility, Abstract Expressionism. Among the important works that draw the primeval manifestations are paintings by Arshile Gorky, Hans Hofmann, and Jackson Pollock. The expansive canvases of gestural and colour-field painting by Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still that follow are filled with the energy that would dominate the art earth for the next decade.
The moving-picture show component, fatigued from the Museum's Archive, surveys the rich cinematic history of the forties, which ranges from avant-garde works and Hollywood classics to wartime propaganda and combat films. Among the works featured are Casablanca (1942), Michael Curtiz's classic wartime love story; Laura (1944), Otto Preminger's dark and witty murder mystery; Paisan (1946), Roberto Rossellini'south Italian neo-realist film; and The Tertiary Man (1949), Carol Reed'southward account of a manhunt in post–World War II Vienna. The awareness of psychoanalysis in the forties is reflected in both Hollywood features such as Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) and independent films such as Hans Richter's Dreams That Money Tin can Purchase (1946). The development of the American advanced is traced through films past such directors as James Broughton, Maya Deren, and Sidney Peterson. The programme also includes a tribute to the important film society, Movie theatre 16, and ends with a fiftieth-ceremony screening of peradventure the most celebrated film of the forties, Orson Welles'southward Citizen Kane (1941).
Organized past Riva Castleman, deputy director for curatorial affairs and director of the Section of Prints and Illustrated Books, in consultation with the curators of Painting and Sculpture, Drawings, Photography, Architecture and Blueprint, and Moving picture.
The exhibition is supported in office by a grant from The Bohen Foundation.
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Art of the Forties Hardcover, 160 pages
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Art of the Forties Paperback, 160 pages
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Art of the forties Out of print, 168 pages
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Ansel Adams
American, 1902–1984 48 exhibitions, 86 works online -
László Moholy-Nagy
American, born Hungary. 1895–1946 107 exhibitions, 123 works online -
Gregory Ain
American, 1908–1988 6 exhibitions, two works online -
Joan Miró
Spanish, 1893–1983 200 exhibitions, 488 works online -
Salvatore Fiume
Italian, 1915–1997 2 exhibitions, ane piece of work online - At that place are 155 artists in this exhibition online.
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Source: https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/330