Art Noticeboard: America's Cool Modernism

Wednesday, 6 June 2018

America's Cool Modernism - Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Charles Demuth, I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold, 1928

The Great Figure

Among the rain

and lights

I saw the figure 5

in gold

on a red

firetruck

moving

with weight and urgency

tense

unheeded

to gong clangs

siren howls

and wheels rumbling

through the dark city

(William Carlos Williams)

America's Cool Modernism is at the Ashmolean Museum until 22 July, 2018

From the Ashmolean website:

This is the first exhibition to explore the 'cool' in American art in the early 20th century, from early experiments in abstraction by artists like Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove and Paul Strand to the strict, clean precisionist paintings of Charles Sheeler and Charles Demuth.

In the Jazz Age of the ‘roaring’ 20s, and the ensuing Great Depression of the 30s, many American artists expressed their uncertainty about the rapid modernisation and urbanisation of their country by producing work that had a cool, controlled detachment and a smooth, precise finish.

This exhibition brings together some of the greatest works ever made by American artists – iconic pieces which reveal this fascinating aspect of American interwar art.

(See links to reviews below images.)