As writers began defining the vernacular aspects of American art in mid-1910s, the photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz and his circle became a locus of attention. Two younger writers, Waldo Frank and Paul Rosenfeld, both neo-Freudians, were among those responsible for redirecting the interpretation of modernist expression. Frank and Rosenfeld
From our colleagues at The Metropolitan Museum of Art comes an interview between Rachel High, Publishing and Marketing Assistant in the Met’s editorial department, and Kelly Baum, curator of an exhibition on the art and history of delirium from 1950 to 1980, which is on view at the Met Breuer
Among our exciting fall books is one about German-born American designer Kem Weber, whose fascinating life story rivals his outstanding design work in interest. The book’s author, Christopher Long, will be delighting California audiences next week with talks about Kem Weber – he has an event at the AD&A Museum
Follow @yaleARTbooks Follow @Caroline_Hayes_ Art historians are just beginning to uncover the influence of Mexico on American modernism. In looking beyond Europe’s effect on American modernism in the 20th century, Ellen G. Landau’s important new book, Mexico and American Modernism brings forth a piece of history long in shadow. She
For the May 13 centennial of Joseph Pulitzer Jr.’s birth, Marjorie B. Cohn, author of Classic Modern, the first biography of Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. to focus on his art collecting—arguably his greatest passion—and his role in bringing modernism to the American Midwest, writes here about one of the pleasures of writing the biography of a
Follow @yaleARTbooks Following the post on the exhibition catalog, a Q&A with Jennifer Gross, Seymour H. Knox, Jr., Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Yale University Art Gallery and editor of The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America. What specifically prompted Dreier and Duchamp to found the Société Anonyme? What
Follow @yaleARTbooks In 1920, three luminaries of the American art world—Katherine Dreier, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray, founded Société Anonyme. Frustrated by America’s indifference and frequent hostility to its artists, Dreier and Duchamp sought to cultivate a community of American modern artists that would inspire, through exhibitions, lectures, and eventually
Emily Bernard starts her biography, “This book is a portrait of a once controversial figure, Carl Van Vechten, a white man with a passion for blackness.” And while today more people can recognize Carl Van Vechten as a patron and leader of the black arts and Harlem Renaissance movement, in
Read an excerpt from Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance Carl Van Vechten, the controversial patron of the Harlem Renaissance, was indeed a Renaissance man: art critic, novelist, adviser, social host and man-about-town. Yet in his role as a letter writer we see him as a passionate epistolary friend.
In response to a question about her most famous line, “A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” Gertrude Stein once replied “Now listen! I’m no fool. I know that in daily life we don’t say ‘is a…is a…is a…’” Like many modernists, Stein was looking to