AP Art History - Modernism in Europe and America

PABLO PICASSO, Weeping Woman, 1937, Oil on canvas, 2' x 1' 7".

" . . . No, painting is not interior decoration. It is an instrument of war for attack and defense against the enemy." — Picasso Continued Guernica's tragedy theme Mater Dolorosa, weeping Virgin - traditional Spanish image. Picasso's father, made one for family's home. Dora Maar, only photographer to document stages of Guernica. Picasso's mistress 1936 - 1944; painted her in a number of guises. "For me she's the weeping woman. For years I've painted her in tortured forms, not through sadism, and not with pleasure, either; just obeying a vision that forced itself on me. It was the deep reality, not the superficial one... Dora, for me, was always a weeping woman....And it's important, because women are suffering machines."

DIEGO RIVERA, Man, Controller of the Universe in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, 1934 (a recreation of Man at the Crossroads, 1933 commissioned for the Rockefeller Center).

"Art has always been employed by the different social classes who hold the balance of power as one instrument of domination - hence a political instrument. . . . When [a painter] refuses to seek or accept a subject, his own plastic methods and his own aesthetic theories become his subject instead. . . . He becomes nothing but an illustrator of his own state of mind. . . . That is the deception practiced under the name of "Pure Art." - Rivera.

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, plan of the 3 levels of Robie House, Chicago, Illinois, 1907-1909.

"Wandering" plan with intricately joined spaces, grouped freely around great central fireplace - Wright believed in hearth's age-old domestic significance. Open ground plan created sense of space in motion, inside and out.

CHARLES DEMUTH, My Egypt, 1927. Oil on board, 3' x 2'6".

(insert photo)

DIEGO RIVERA, Ancient Mexico, from the History of Mexico fresco, National Palace, Mexico City, 1929-1935. Fresco.

(insert photo)

ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER, Street, Dresden, 1908 (dated 1907). Oil on canvas, 4' 11" x 6' 7".

(insert photo)

JOSÉ CLEMENTE OROZCO, Epic of American Civilization: Hispano-America (panel 16), Baker Memorial Library, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, ca. 1932-1934. Fresco

(insert photo)

MAX BECKMANN, Night, 1918-1919. Oil on canvas, 4' 4" x 5'.

(insert photo)

VASSILY KANDINSKY, Improvisation 28 (second version), 1912. Oil on canvas, 3' 8" x 5' 4". and VASSILY KANDINSKY, Composition VIII Oil on canvas, 4' 7" x 6' 7", 1923.

(insert photos)

African Sculptures

...

Surrealism

...

Europe in 1919

1900 - 1945 was a period of upheaval: 2 global wars, rise of Communism, Fascism, and Nazism, as well as the Great Depression. Artistic revolution often has accompanied political, social, and economic upheaval, but never before so pronounced or as long-lasting. Artists challenged some of the most basic assumptions about art - its purpose and what form it should take. Relentless questioning of status quo - artistic avant-garde, "front guard" from 19th-century French military usage where troops sent ahead of the army's main body to observe and make occasional enemy raids. Avant-garde artists rejected classical and academic to explore premises and formal qualities of various media. General public found avant-garde art incomprehensible, but modernist principals appealed to increasing number of artists.

Futurism (no picture)

1909 Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, an Italian intellectual, published "Founding and Manifesto of Futurism" in French newspaper. His leadership ensured movement's cohesion until his death in 1944. Futurists were modern, young, and rebellious. Inspired by modernity—the industrial city, machines, speed, and flight—exalted the new and the disruptive. Revitalize static, decaying culture that looked to past for its identity. Began as literary avant-garde - manifestos, and the written word were intrinsic to dissemination of their ideas. Quickly embraced visual/performing arts, politics, even advertising. Experimented with fragmentation of form, collapsing of time and space, depiction of dynamic motion, and dizzying perspectives. Futurists' celebrated war as means to remake Italy and supported Italy's entrance into World War I - washing away stagnant past. Museums/libraries as mausoleums - wanted to destroy them. Many paradoxes: predominantly antifeminine/had active female participants; called for a breakdown of "high" and "low" culture/valued painting above other forms of expression; glorified the machine/shied away from film; denounced traditional institutions/Marinetti become member of Academy of Italy in 1929.

PABLO PICASSO, Still Life with Chair-Caning, 1912. Oil and oilcloth on canvas, 11" x 1' 2".

1912 - Synthetic Cubism, constructed from objects and shapes cut from paper or other materials. Oil cloth photo-lithographed pattern of a cane chair, framed with rope. Braque 1st used wood-grain oil cloth for a Cubist guitar drawing. Collage - French "coller" meaning "to stick." Iconoclasts - industrially-produced objects ("low" commercial culture) into the realm of fine art ("high" culture). Questioned elitism of art world; highlighted and separated role of technical skill from art-making.  Introduced "fake" element on purpose, not to fool audience, but force a discussion of art and craft/high and low/unique and mass-produced. JOU refers to French newspaper, journaux; also puns for jouer and jouir, French verbs "to play" and "enjoy." Picasso viewed Cubism like any other art movement - not a subversive attack on 20th century society. "Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth." "We didn't want to fool the eye; we wanted to fool the mind. . ." - Picasso.

The German Expressionists (no picture)

1st group of German Expressionists, Die Brucke (The Bridge), headed by Ernst Kirchner, sought to pave the way for a more perfect age by bridging the old and the new. From early studies in architecture, painting and graphic arts, Kirchner admired German medieval art. Like British William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, Die Brucke was modeled after a medieval crafts guild whose members lived together and practiced all the arts equally. Protested hypocrisy and materialistic decadence of those in power. Kirchner focused on detrimental effects of industrialization - alienation of people in cities which fostered a mechanized and impersonal society. Tensions leading to WWI exacerbated the discomfort and anxiety. Kirchner's Street, Dresden - bustling German city before WWI. Not distant, panoramic urban view of Impressionists, but jarring and dissonant in composition and garish color, harshly rendered/disquieting figures influenced by Edvard Munch. Steep perspective pushes woman directly into viewer's space - confrontational nature.

MARCEL DUCHAMP, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), 1915-23. Oil, lead, wire, foil, dust, and varnish on glass, 9' 1" x 5' 9".

Abandoned as unfinished in 1923 - playful and serious examination of humans as machines. Mechanical, diagrammatic, and abstract images. Series of notes accompanies work. Bride at top, Duchamp describes as "basically a motor" fueled by "love gasoline." Bachelors in uniforms, bottom left moving mechanically. Chocolate grinder, bottom center - whimsical insights into confounding realm of desire and sexuality. Work complete by "chance" when glass panes shattered during transport in 1927. Instead of replacing glass, Duchamp pieced it together. Philosophy of utter freedom for artists was fundamental to history of art in the 20th century.

PRECISIONISM (no picture)

An American art movement, but not an organized group. Gravitated to synthetic Cubism's flat, sharply delineated planes. Americans generally seemed more enthusiastic about prospects of a mechanized society than Europeans. Demuth, born in Pennsylvania, (PAFA trained) spent 1912 - 1914 in Paris. Rejected pure abstraction, favoring American subjects - industrial landscapes. Grain elevators near Lancaster, Demuth's birthplace, reduced to simple geometric forms. "Beams" - transparent, diagonal planes recall Cubist fragmentation of space. Title is ambiguous - favorable comparison? Or is it cynical - negative comment on limitations of American culture?

WILLIAM VAN ALEN, Chrysler Building, New York, New York, 1928-1930.

Art Deco named after Exposition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris, 1925. Universal application - buildings, interiors, furniture, utensils, jewelry, fashion, illustration, commercial products "Streamlined," elongated symmetry, simple flat shapes alternate with shallow volumes in hard patterns. Derived from nature, inherently aerodynamic, technologically efficient (reduced resistance moving through air or water), aesthetically pleasing. Streamlined designs for trains and cars. Art Deco masterpiece - spire of Chrysler Building - monument to success of American business before Great Depression during 1920s when corporations competed to raise the tallest skyscrapers. Diminishing fan shapes, crown honoring Chrysler's achievements.

WALTER GROPIUS, Shop Block, the Bauhaus, Dessau, Germany, 1925-1926.

As Mondrian insisted, "Art and life are one; art and life are both expressions of truth." - Art should be thoroughly incorporated into living environments. In Germany, Gropius' vision of "total architecture" - concept of own work and generations of pupils at the Bauhaus. Gropius design for the new Bauhaus in Dessau, fit his manifesto - architecture should avoid "all romantic embellishment and whimsy," and realize the "economy in the use of space." The building had large areas of free flowing space - encouraged interaction and sharing of ideas. Reinforced concrete, but set supports back, sheathing entire structure in glass - streamlined and light effect.

PABLO PICASSO, Guernica, 1937. Oil on canvas, 11' 5" x 25' 6".

Asked by Spanish Republican government-in-exile to create a painting for the Spanish Pavilion of the Paris International Exposition - whose overall theme was the celebration of modern technology (note irony). Picasso became involved with political issues when homeland descended into civil war in late 1930s. Guernica, capital of Basque region almost totally destroyed in air raid in 1937 by Nazi pilots acting on behalf of rebel general Francisco Franco and bombed the city at busiest hour of market day, killing thousands. Universal visceral outcry of human grief.

MARCEL BREUER, Wassily chair, 1925. Chrome-plated tubular steel and canvas, 2'4"x 2'7" x 2'4".

Bauhaus' ideal of integrating art, craftsmanship, and technology. Realizing that mass production was the precondition of successful design in the machine age, its members rejected the Arts and Crafts Movement's emphasis on individually executed luxury objects. The Bauhaus is associated with a severe but elegant geometric style carried out with great economy of means. Kandinsky and Klee taught there. Gropius advocated strong basic design - composition, 2 and 3 dimensionality, and craftsmanship. Goal to eliminate boundaries between art and craft - wide range of courses: carpentry, furniture design, pottery, bookbinding, metalwork, stained glass, mural painting, stage design, advertising, typography, as well as painting, sculpture, and architecture. One of Hitler's 1st acts after coming to power was to close the Bauhaus in 1933. During 14 year existence, only 500 graduated. Legendary - art schools everywhere structured their cuuicula in line with the Bauhaus.

RENÉ MAGRITTE, The Treachery (or Perfidy) of Images, 1928-1929. Oil on canvas, 2' x 3' 1".

Belgian Magritte encountered work of de Chirico in 1922, his produced his 1st Surreal painting 4 years later. Magritte moved to Paris in 1927 for 3 years, joined intellectual circle of Andre Breton (who wrote the Surrealist Manifesto in 1924). Magritte published essay in 1929 which explained basis of this painting. Trompe l'oeil (deceive the eye) depiction of briar pipe. Caption reads, "This is not a pipe." Discrepancy between image and caption challenges assumptions underlying reading of visual art. Challenges viewer's reliance on conscious and rational.

Georgia O'Keeffe, Light Iris, 1924

Best known for paintings of cow skulls and flowers. Stripped subjects to purest forms and colors to heighten expressive power. By enlarging the petals to over lifesize proportions, O'Keeffe forces viewers to confront what might be overlooked and, in turn, elevates the ordinary to the extraordinary. "Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time." - O'Keeffe When her magnified flowers were first shown in 1924, even Stieglitz was shocked by their audacity. Critics saw sexual content in their delicate contours, organic forms, and lush surfaces, even though the artist always denied such associations.

JACOB LAWRENCE, No. 49 from The Migration of the Negro, 1940-1941. Tempera on masonite, 1' 6" x 1'.

Born in Atlantic City, Lawrence moved to Harlem when he was 13. Inspired by political work of Goya, Daumier, Orozco, influenced by Harlem Renaissance as well as lectures/exhibitions at the 135th Street NY Public Library. Painted The Migration Series at age 23; 60 paintings depicting mass movement of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from rural South to urban North after WWI seeking economic opportunities and a more hospitable political/social environment. Often conditions were as difficult as in the South. To unify series, Lawrence used a consistent palette, applying 1 hue at a time to every painting, requiring planning all 60 paintings in detail at once. Influenced by Cubism and patterns in colored scatter rugs of childhood homes. Series shown at Downtown Gallery in Manhattan in 1941, making Lawrence the first black artist represented by a New York gallery.

ALEXANDER CALDER, Lobster Trap and Fish Tail, 1939. Painted sheet aluminum and steel wire. 8' 6" X 9' 6".

Born in Philadelphia, Calder was third in a line of sculptors. The Swann Fountain in Logan Circle was created in 1924 by his father, on top of City Hall is the thirty-six-foot-high statue of William Penn by Calder's grandfather. Initially studied mechanical engineering; explored movement in relation to three- dimensional form. Created a circus full of wire sculptures in Paris, late 1920s. Visit to Mondrian's studio, early 1930s, put his bright rectangles into motion. Non-objective organic shapes resemble Miro's paintings. Duchamp named Calder's early motorized and hand-cranked moving abstract sculptures, mobiles. Lobster Trap commissioned for new MOMA's stairwell. Geometric - circuitry and rigging, shapes from circles and ovoids. Organic - nerve axons, shapes resemble cells, leave, fin, wings. Innate dynamism of natural world.

GEORGIA O'KEEFFE, New York, Night, 1929. Oil on canvas, 3' 4" x 1' 7".

Born in Wisconsin, O'Keeffe changed her style throughout her career. In the 1920s she was a Precisionist. "Your have to live in today," she told a friend. "Today the city is something bigger, more complex than ever before in history." Met Alfred Stieglitz who played major role promoting avant-garde artists in U.S. in his art gallery at "291" 5th Avenue in N.Y.C. One of O'Keeffe's staunchest supporters and, eventually her husband. Reduced her images to simple planes, small rectangular windows add rhythm and energy to monolithic darkness of ominous buildings.

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, Kaufmann House (Fallingwater), Bear Run, PA, 1936-1939.

Built for Pittsburgh department store magnate. Fluid, dynamic exchange between interior and natural environment outside. Built over waterfall - inhabitants would become desensitized to waterfall's presence and power if they merely overlooked it. Terraces extend on 3 levels from central core. Textures contrast - concrete, painted metal, natural stone, and full-length strip windows enliven shape - interweave interior/exterior space. Wright's architecture was a space, not a mass, designed to fit patron's life, enclosed and divided as required. Often designed accessories of a house. Published plans brought Wright fame in Europe, especially Holland and Germany, an exception for an American before WWII. After WWII, American artist would take the lead in establishing new styles.

JOAN MIRÓ, Painting, 1933. 5' 8" x 6' 5"

By 1924, 1st Surrealist Manifesto was published, most Dadaists joined movement - exploring dreams, unconscious. Incorporated many Dadaists' improvisational techniques to activate unconscious forces. Also used automatic writing (spontaneous writing using free association). Inspired by Freud and Jung, viewed dreams occurring on a level connecting all human consciousness; reengage with deeper selves society had long suppressed. Surrealism developed along 2 lines: Naturalistic Surrealism - recognizable scenes that metamorphosed into a dream or nightmare image and Biomorphic Surrealism - (life forms) automatism, the creation of art without conscious control predominated. Spanish, Miro was a Biomorphic Surrealist, who produced mostly abstract compositions, sometimes imagery resembles organisms or natural forms Surrealist poets in Paris introduced using the concept of chance. Began painting by making scattered collage composition with fragments cut from catalog for machinery, shapes became motifs. Switched back and forth between conscious and unconscious process.

MERET OPPENHEIM, Object, 1936. Fur-covered cup, 4" diameter; saucer, 9" diameter; spoon, 8" long.

Captures absurdity, humor, visual appeal, and often eroticism (soft tactile fur) characterizing Surrealism. Inspired from conversation with Picasso. He admired bracelet Meret was wearing - brass covered with fur, and noted that anything could be covered with fur. When her tea grew cold Oppenheim responded to Picasso's comment by ordering "un peu plus de fourrure" (a little more fur). Captures Surrealist flair for alchemical, magical/mystical transformation.

PAUL CÉZANNE, The Large Bathers, 1906. Oil on canvas, 6' 11" X 8' 3".

Cezanne's treatment of form and space to new level. Fractured figures, interwove with planes of drapery, space Faces on left/ancient Iberian, right/African sculptures. Revised bodies on right - more ambiguous planes, combination of views; represented world as dynamic interplay of time and space.

PABLO PICASSO, Family of Saltimbanques, 1905. Oil on canvas, 7' X 7'6".

Circus/circus performer long tradition in art and in literature, especially prominent in French art of late 19th century. Picasso attended performances of the Cirque Médrano, a circus near his residence/studio in Montmartre. Performers regarded as social outsiders, poor but independent. Symbolized alienation of avant-garde artists. Autobiographical statement? A covert group portrait of Picasso and friends. Reworked several times, adding figures and altering the composition. Desolate landscape, carefully balanced composition, yet each figure is psychologically isolated from the others, and from the viewer.

Nail figure (nkisi n'kondi), Kongo, from Shiloango River area, Democratic Republic of Congo, ca. 1875-1900. Wood, nails, blades, medicinal materials, and cowrie shell, 3' 11" high.

Congo River - principal transportation route during 19th century; cultural exchanges and trade among Africans and/or Europeans. Kongo power figures, nkisi n'knodi - consecrated by trained priests using precise ritual formulas, embodied spirits believed to heal, give life, or inflict harm, disease, death. Figures had specific roles - like medicine: cured minor ailments, stimulated crop growth, punished thieves, weakened enemies. Activated images differently: nails or blades prodded spirit to do work, repeated specific chants, rubbed image, applied special powders. Large standing figures aided communities. Although benevolent for owners, figures stood at boundary between life and death, most villagers held them in awe. Simplified facial features, large head for emphasis.

HANNAH HÖCH, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany, 1919-1920. Photomontage, 3' 9" x 3'.

Dada had a political edge in Berlin. Photomontage - from magazines Antilogical, chaotic, contradictory, satirical compositions - exploit chance Redefinition of women's roles, explosive growth of print media Key figures in Weimar Republic - upper right with "anti-Dada" Dadaists with Marx and Lenin "Die grosse Welt dada" (the great Dada world). Photo of Hoch's head lower right with map of Europe - showing countries where women had the right to vote - comment on power women and Dada had to destabilize society. Kollwitz's head floats in center.

MARCEL DUCHAMP, Fountain, (2nd version), 1950 (original version 1917). Readymade glazed sanitary china, black paint, 1' high.

Dadaists' pessimism and disgust surfaced in disdain for convention and tradition. Undermined cherished notions and assumptions about art. Nihilistic (rejection of social mores/belief that nothing is worthwhile and destruction of authority) enterprise, contemptuous iconoclasm. "Like everything in life, Dada is useless, everything happens in a completely idiotic way . . ." Undercurrent of irreverent humor/whimsy Phenomenally influential and powerful! Emphasis on spontaneous/intuitive - images from subconscious mind have truth of their own - art as means of self revelation/catharsis. Influenced by Freud (unconscious control behavior) and Carl Jung (unconscious is personal and collective - memories and associations all humans share - archetypes, development of myths, religions, philosophies. Duchamp - French, but central artist of NY Dada. 1913 - 1st "readymade" sculptures. R. Mutt witty pseudonym for Mott plumbing company and Mutt and Jeff comic strip duo. The "art" lay in artist's choice of object - conferred status of art on it, forcing viewers to see object in new light.

SALVADOR DALÍ, The Persistence of Memory, 1931. Oil on canvas, 9" x 1' 1".

Dali - "Hand-painted dream photographs." Painted during his psychoanalytical era, meaning from Freud's work. Drooping pocket watches possibly suggest irrelevance of time during sleep - when we sleep, not conscious, the time does not persist, but memories do. Einstein's theory that time is relative and is not fixed. Dali was Spanish, landscape similar to hometown of Port Lligat. "Paranoiac-critical method" assisted creative process. "Spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based on the critical and systematic objectivity of the associations and interpretations of delirious phenomena." Results in ambiguous image that can be interpreted various ways.

Kandinsky and Der Blaue Reiter (no picture)

Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), formed by Vassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, whimsically selected name - liked blue and horses. Kandinsky began painting at age 30, after leaving his law career. One of the 1st artists to explore complete abstraction - sought to capture feelings in visual form while eliciting intense visceral responses from viewers. Kandinsky was a true intellectual, also interested in all the arts, especially music. Desire to eliminate representation was fueled by interest in Theosophy (religious/philosophical belief system including wide range of tenets, i.e. Buddhism, and mysticism), the occult, and advances in science. Scientists shattered existing faith in objective reality of matter (Newtonian physics) and paved way for new model of universe. Einstein argued space and time are not absolute, but relative to the observer and linked to 4-dimensional space-time continuum. Matter, rather than a solid, tangible reality, was another form of energy. Kandinsky wrote Concerning the Spiritual in Art in 1912. he believed artists must express innermost feelings by orchestrating color, form, line, and space. Ultimately abstract art could lead to a more enlightened and liberated society emphasizing spirituality.

GERRIT THOMAS RIETVELD, Schröder House, Utrecht, the Netherlands, 1924.

Developments in European architecture after WWI paralleled the stylistic and theoretical concerns of fine artists. Rietveld - architectural equivalent of De Stijl. Main living rooms of Schroder house are on 2nd floor, more private rooms on ground floor. Open plan and relationship to nature like houses of Frank Lloyd Wright Entire 2nd floor has sliding partitions, closed to define separate rooms, pushed back to create one open space. Outside, railings, free-floating walls, and long rectangular windows give effect of cubic units breaking up before our eyes. 3 dimensional projection of Mondrian's carefully balanced compositions.

PIET MONDRIAN, Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1930. Oil on canvas, 1' 6" x 1' 6".

Dutch De Stijl, The Style, founded in 1917 by Mondrian and Doesburg, shared Suprematists' utopian spirit. De Stijl believed in birth of new age after WWI - time of balance between individual and universal values; machine would assure ease of living. De Stijl revealed underlying eternal structure of existence. Mondrian attracted to Theosophy, literally "God's wisdom" in Greek, which based knowledge of nature and human condition on divine or spiritual powers. Abandoned Theosophy for conception of nonobjective design, "pure plastic art." Neoplasticism, "pure plastic art" used primary colors and values - purest, perfect tools to construct harmonious composition with dynamic tension from size and position of lines, shapes, and colors. "Art should be above reality, otherwise it would have no value for man." To create a universal expression an artist must communicate, "a real equation of the universal and the individual." - Mondrian

PABLO PICASSO, The Blind Man's Meal, 1903. Oil on canvas, 3' 1" x 3' 1"

Early work influenced by Expressionists' departure from illusionism; El Greco, Munch and Lautrec. Born in Spain, mastered late 19th century Realist technique before he entered Barcelona Academy of Fine Arts in 1890s. Perhaps most prolific artist; all mediums. Remained traditional - made careful preparatory studies for all major works. Epitomized modernism - quest for innovation. Blue Period (1901 - 1904) mood of melancholy and desolation with subjects that suggested unhappiness, dejection, poverty, despondency, and despair. Not merely a portrait of a blind man; also Picasso's commentary on human suffering in general. Meal of bread and wine refers to the figure of Christ and sacramental associations that Picasso as a Spaniard would have known. Picasso's own situation at the time - impoverished and depressed, he closely identified with the unfortunates of society.

ROMARE BEARDEN, Factory Workers, 1942, Gouache and casein on Kraft paper, 3' 1" x 2' 4"

Factory Workers, is one of about 20 large-scale works that Romare Bearden completed in the early 1940s. Commissioned by Fortune magazine, it served as the frontispiece for the June 1942 article "The Negro's War," which discussed social and financial costs of racial discrimination during wartime and persuasively advocated the full integration of the American workplace. Black job seekers are denied work at a steel mill, experiencing discrimination in hiring; reflects larger state of race relations in mid-century America. Evokes emotions through facial expressions and gestures, in a simplified representational style - known as social realism because of overtly political subject matter, popular in the U.S. during 1930s, early 1940s, particularly among artists who participated in the government-sponsored Federal Arts Project.

UMBERTO BOCCIONI, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913 (cast 1931). Bronze, 3' 8" x 2' 11" x 1' 4".

Focused on formal and spatial effects of motion - distorted and fragmented the figure. Blurred as seen from an automobile travelling at a high speed. Marinetti, insisted a racing "automobile adorned with great pipes like serpents with explosive breath . . . Is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace. From Futurist Painting: Technical Manifesto, "persistency of an image on the retina, moving objects constantly multiply themselves [and] their form changes. Thus a running horse has not four legs, but twenty." Futurist group began to disintegrate once WWI broke out, many joined the Italian army, Boccioni died in the war at age 33.

GEORGES BRAQUE, The Portuguese, 1911. Oil on canvas, 3' 10" x 2' 8".

For years Picasso only showed Les Demoiselles to other painters. Braque, a Fauvist painter, rethought his own style because of it. Picasso and Braque formulated Cubism around 1908. Analysis of form central to Cezanne's explorations - dissected forms into constituent features. Matisse described work to critic, Louis Vauxcelles as painted "with little cubes." 1st phase: Analytic Cubism, painterly analysis of the structure of form. Braque's painting of a musician in a Marseilles bar exemplifies style. Subdued hues to focus on form. Letters play with viewers' perception of 2 and 3 dimensional space. Disconcerting venture into ambiguity and doubt - radically disrupted expectations about representation of space and time.

GINO SEVERINI, Armored Train, 1915. Oil on canvas, 3' 10" x 2' 10".

High-tech armored train with cannon, soldiers point guns at unseen target. Cubist - forms broken into facets and planes, suggesting action or movement. Futurists' passion for speed and "whirling life of steel," as well as faith in cleansing action of war. Outside colors are light and bright, death and destruction are absent. Contrasts sharply with Goya's Third of May, 1808 where dead are graphically presented.

Degenerate Art (no picture)

Hitler, an aspiring artist, believed 19th century realistic genre paintings were the height of Aryan art, denigrated any art that did not conform, especially avant-garde art. Ordered confiscation of more than 16,000 works considered "degenerate" (term also used to identify supposedly inferior racial, sexual, and moral types). Ordered Goebbels, his minister for public enlightenment /propaganda to organize exhibit of works that "insult German feeling, or destroy or confuse natural form, or simply reveal an absence of adequate manual and artistic skill." Entartete Kunst ran concurrently with a Nazi-approved art exhibit at another venue. 650 artworks, about 3 million total viewers; exhibit included Beckmann, Dix, Ernst, Kandinsky, Kirchner, Klee, Marc, Nolde, Schwitters, among others (only 6 artists were Jewish). Being a charter member of Nazi party didn't help Nolde, more than 1000 of his works were confiscated and 27 in exhibit. Beckmann, wife fled to Amsterdam on opening day, never to return home. Kichner destroyed woodblocks, burned work; committed suicide in 1 year.

HENRY MOORE, Reclining Figure, 1939. Elm wood, 3' 1" x 6' 7" x 2' 6".

In England, Moore was interested in the hole or void as important sculptural element, representing caves in hillsides and cliffs. Abstracted series of reclining female nudes inspired by photograph of Mayan Chacmool, possibly symbolic of slain warriors carrying offerings to gods (plate on stomach). Believed simple, massive shapes expressed universal truth beyond physical world; reminiscent of Surrealist biomorphic forms. Natural beauty of different materials - contours follow grain of wood. Powerful earth mother, nurturing energy. Shapes evoke contours of Yorkshire hills of Moore's childhood. Utilized organic forms: bones, eroded rocks.

Neu Sachlichkeit, New Objectivity (no picture)

In Germany, artists who served in WWI formed the artistic movement, Neu Sachlichkeit, New Objectivity, to present a clear-eyed, direct, honest image of the war and its effects. MAX BECKMANN believing that chaos of war would lead to a better society, enlisted in German army and served as a medical corpseman. He observed the after effects of a mustard gas attacks, numerous operations, as well as dead and maimed soldiers. After one year, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was discharged. Night, offers his disturbing view of society descending into madness from the horrors of war. 3 intruders invaded cramped room. He used himself, wife, and son as models. The angularity of the figures, roughness of the paint contribute to images' savageness. Dislocated, contorted forms and buckled, illogical space reflects violence - woman's hand bound to window on back wall, but she hangs vertically, not lying across the table.

United States, 1930 to 1945 (no picture)

In the 1930s the Western world was in the Great Depression. The limited art market virtually disappeared, museums cut back purchases and exhibition schedules. Artists sought financial help from federal government. Treasury Relief Art Project, founded in 1934, commissioned art for federal buildings, and Work Progress Administration (WPA) founded in 1935, paid artists, writers, and theater people a regular wage in exchange for work in their professions. U.S. became have for artists escaping Hitler and Nazis, including Beckmann and Dali; exposed American artists to European Modernism, as significant as Armory Show of 1913. U.S. museums showed progressive European art - Museum of Saint Louis - Beckmann, and Art Institute of Chicago - George Grosz. Americans perceived support for these artists and their work as support for freedom and democracy. When U.S. entered WWII, Germany became the official enemy and it was more difficult for the American art world to promote German artists.

GIORGIO DE CHIRICO, The Song of Love, 1914. Oil on canvas, 2' 5" x 1' 11".

Italian, precursor of Surrealism Pittura Metafisica, Metaphysical Painting - suggests images transcend physical appearance. Hidden reality revealed through strange juxtapositions. Late autumn afternoons long shadows transformed open squares into "metaphysical towns." A fragment of Apollo Belvedere in the Vatican, locomotive puffing smoke in the background (favorite Futurist motif). Nietzsche's "foreboding that underneath this reality in which we live and have our being, another and altogether different reality lies concealed." Paintings appeared in periodicals and influenced artist outside Italy: Dadaists - in congruities, Surrealists - eerie mood and visionary quality.

JOSEPH STELLA, The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme, 1939

Italian-born Joseph Stella, immigrated to New York at 19. New York City was a nexus of frenetic, form-shattering power. The Brooklyn Bridge, 1st depicted in 1918 and returned to throughout his career - a contemporary technological monument that embodied the modern human spirit. Linear dynamism from Italian Futurism - dizzying height and awesome scale from fractured perspectives, combining dramatic views of radiating cables, stone masonry, cityscapes, and night sky. Large scale of the work, nearly 6', conjures a Renaissance altar, while Gothic style of the massive pointed arches evokes medieval churches. Combining contemporary architecture and historical allusions, Stella transformed Brooklyn Bridge into a 20th-century symbol of divinity, the quintessence of modern life and the Machine Age.

KATHE KOLLWITZ, The Mothers (plate 6) from War, Woodcut from a portfolio of 7,13" x 16", 1921 - 1922

Kollwitz had no formal association with any Expressionist group. 1919, Käthe Kollwitz began Krieg (War) in response to World War I and aftermath. Focused on the sorrows of those left behind—mothers, widows, children. As many as 9 preparatory drawings and states for each print, Kollwitz radically simplified the compositions. The large-format, stark black-and-white woodcuts feature women left to face their grief and fears alone, with their partners, or with each other. Only one print, Die Freiwilligen (The volunteers), shows the combatants. Kollwitz's younger son, Peter, takes his place next to Death, who leads troops in an ecstatic procession to war. Peter was killed in action 2 months later. Kollwitz wanted these works to be widely viewed. By eliminating references to a specific time or place, she created universally legible indictments of the real sacrifices demanded in exchange for abstract concepts of honor and glory. Prints were exhibited in 1924 at newly founded International Anti-War Museum in Berlin.

Reliquary guardian figure (mbulu-ngulu), Kota, Gabon, 19th or early 20th century. Wood, copper, iron, and brass, 1' 9" high.

Kota's reliquary guardian figures, mbulu ngulu - severely stylized bodies form open diamond. Carved wood covered with strips and sheets of polished copper and brass reworked from brass basins originating in Europe, traded into this area of equatorial Africa in 18th and19th centuries. The Kota believed shiny surfaces would repel evil. Hairstyles flattened out laterally above and beside face. Geometric ridges, borders, and subdivisions add textured elegance. Lower portion of image would be inserted into a basket or box of ancestral relics.

Senufo masquerader, Cote d'Ivoire, photographed ca. 1980-1990.

Masks in stateless societies, such as Senufo, so influential - had own priests, served as power sources or oracles. Maskers empowered to levy fines, apprehend witches (socially destructive people), criminals as well as judge and punish them. Normally, especially today, more secular, educational and offer diversions. Masked dancers embodied ancestors, briefly returning to human realm or various nature spirits with special powers. Maskers displayed broad range of human, animal, and fantastic otherworldly behavior - both stimulating and didactic. Range from weak spirit power/strong entertainment value to vast executive powers with powerful shrines. Mediators - between men and women, youths and elders, initiated and uninitiated, powers of nature and humans, even life and death. Maskers carry boys away from mothers to bush initiation camps - through ordeals and schooling, welcome back to society months or years later.

HENRI MATISSE, Purple Robe and Anemones, 1937

Matisse explained, "What characterized Fauvism was that we rejected imitative colors and that with pure colors we obtained stronger reactions." In a 1908 essay, "Notes of a Painter," published in Paris, Matisse set forth his principles and goals, ". . . I am forced to interpret nature and submit it to the spirit of the picture. From the relationship I have found in all the tones there must result a living harmony of colors, a harmony analogous to that of a musical composition. . . ." Fauvism contributed to direction of art with color's structural, expressive and aesthetic capabilities.

Frido Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939. 5' 7" x 5' 7"

Mexican mother, German father. Married to Diego Rivera 20 years older, their relationship was tumultuous; this painting was in response to their divorce. Art historians (even Breton) consider Kahlo a Surrealist, she denied this association. Began painting in bed after serious accident - caused health issues her entire life. Deeply nationalistic, member of the Communist party. Artery links 2 Fridas, wearing a European dress (imperialist) and Tehuana, traditional costume of Zapotec women (indigenous), holding photo of Rivera as a child. Heart was an important symbol of Aztecs, last independent rulers. 2 Fridas represent both personal and homeland struggles.

THOMAS HART BENTON, Pioneer Days and Early Settlers, State Capitol, Jefferson City, Missouri, 1936. Mural.

Missourian Benton - murals for state capital depicting historic and legendary past. Known for complex compositions, fluid imagery, rubbery distortion of figures. On left, a white man uses whisky to barter with a Native American, scene on right documents the building of Missouri (part invention/ legendary). Other murals include primitive agriculture, horse trading, a vigilante lynching, an old-fashioned political meeting, mining industry, grain elevators, Native Americans, and family life. Wood stated, "Your true regionalist is not a mere eulogist; he may even be a severe critic."

Dada (no picture)

More than 9 million soldiers died in 4 years during WWI - an insane spectacle of collective homicide; shocking for a generation brought up with doctrine of progress and belief in fundamental values of civilization. Dadaists believed Enlightenment reason had produced global devastation, so they turned away from logic in favor of political anarchy, the irrational, and the intuitive. Began independently in New York and Zurich, emerged in Paris, Berlin, and Cologne. Founder of slightly later Surrealist movement stated, "Cubism was a school of painting, Futurism a political movement: DADA is a state of mind." Name might have been chosen when Dadaists randomly stuck a knife inot a French-German dictionary, dada is French for a child's hobby horse - nonsensical.

OTTO DIX, Der Krieg (The War), 1929-1932. Oil and tempera on wood, 6' 8" x 13' 5".

OTTO DIX served as machine gunner and aerial observer. "I needed to experience all the depths of life for myself, that's why I volunteered." This idea stemmed from philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche's The Joyous Science - life's cyclical nature: procreation and death, building up and tearing down, growth and decay. As war progressed Dix's faith in potential improvement of society dissipated. Der Krieg, The War - panoramic devastation war inflict on both terrain and humans, in an "altarpiece" format. Much bleaker outlook than Grunewald's Isenheim Altarpiece - no redemption offered, no resurrection. It lays bare realities of his time. On left, armed, uniformed soldiers march into the distance, horrific results in center and right panels, coffin-like bunker on bottom - soldiers are sleeping or dead. Self-portrait on right dragging a comrade of safety.

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, Rosenbaum House, Usonian style, 1939, Florence, Alabama.

Only structure designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the state of Alabama. Wright's Usonian style (named for the United States of North America) was offered as a low-cost home for middle income families. With Wright's plans, a young family could build their own home, fulfilling the American dream of home ownership - "architecture of democracy."

20th Century Mexican Artists (no picture)

Orozco was eldest of several Mexican painters who achieved international prominence that based their art on Mexican indigenous history and culture before Europeans arrived. Idealistic rethinking of society in conjunction with Mexican Revolution (1910 - 1920) and lingering political turmoil. These politically motivated artists painted vast murals on public buildings dramatizing and validating Mexican history. Dartmouth College in NH commissioned Orozco to paint 14 large panels and 10 smaller ones in their library. The college let the artist choose the subject - history of Mexico. Panel 16, Epic of American Civilization: Hispano-America revolves around heroic Mexican peasant armed for Revolution. Surrounded by symbolic figures of his oppressors - bankers, government soldiers, officials, gangsters, and the rich. He is incorruptible - money-grubbers empty bags of gold, cannons threaten, a general is about to stab him. Orozco's training as an architect gave him a sense of the framed wall surface; his experience making political prints and as a newspaper artist taught him the rhetorical strength of graphic brevity - allegory can be easily read.

CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI, The Newborn, 1915. Marble, 6" X 8" X 6". and CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI, Bird in Space, 1928. Bronze, 4' 2" high.

Overcome predominance of mechanization in society by searching for organic and natural. Romanian Brancusi moved beyond surface appearance to capture essence or spirit of object. Softly curving surfaces and ovoid forms refer, directly or indirectly, to cycle of life. Abstract form is final result of a long process. Eye follows gleaming surface of highly reflective surface, along delicate curves, right off tip of work, inducing a feeling of bird about to soar into sky. "All my life I have sought the essence of flight. Don't look for mysteries, I give you pure joy. Look at the sculptures until you see them. Those nearest to God have seen them."

GINO SEVERINI, Dynamic Hieroglyphic of the Bal Tabarin, 1912, Oil on canvas with sequins, 5' 4" x 5' 2".

Paris nightclub Bal Tabarin Futurist dynamism of motion; Cubist integration of text and collage (sequins). Dancehall - multisensory experience, Paris nightclub Bal Tabarin. Current events—the Arab riding a camel refers to Turco-Italian War of 1911 and flags convey sentiments of nationalism. Severini was a fervent Italian nationalist, but insisted his fellow Futurists come to Paris, as he had, to learn about the latest developments in modern art.

PRIMITIVISM AND COLONIALISM (no picture)

Primitivism -stylistic elements from "non-Western" cultures in art. Terms imply superiority of Western civilization. Collected and admired for their different stylistic preferences and standards. Ethnographic (branch of anthropology concerned with ethnic groups) museums began to proliferate during 2nd half of 19th century. Collections were a side-effect of frenzied imperialist expansion of the 19th century and much of 20th century. Western powers maintained colonies as raw-material sources, manufacturing markets, and territorial acquisitions. Objects depicted strange gods or creatures, reinforced perception that non-Western people were "barbarians" who needed to be "civilized" or "saved." Justified colonialism and missionary work. Matisse, "good sculptures . . . Like any other." Picasso, "They were magic things . . . Mediators" between humans and forces of evil - sought to capture power as well as from in his work.

GRANT WOOD, American Gothic, 1930. Oil on beaverboard, 2' 6" x 2' 1".

Regionalism, focused on American subjects, a reaction to Modernism. Influenced by Northern European Renaissance painters including Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait as well as German New Objective painters. Wood's sister and local dentist were models (painted separately) for the man and daughter. House features a lancet window (Gothic). Wood sent to Chicago for the overalls and apron, added his mother's cameo to the woman's outfit. Viewers loved it or hated it, but they all agreed on one issue: it was a satire depicting repression and narrow mindedness of rural small-town life. (Wood denied). Iowans were offended. Staunch nationalism - disturbing because of WWII German nationalism. Popular appeal - reassuring image of America's heartland (quaint and humorous while embodying strength, dignity, fortitude, resoluteness) means of coping with Depression through search for cultural roots.

MARCEL DUCHAMP, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, 1912. Oil on canvas, 4' 10 "x 2' 11".

Relative isolation of American artists ended with the Armory Show in 1913, organized by 2 artists, Kuhn and Davies. More than 1600 artworks by Americans and Europeans including Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Duchamp, Kandinsky, and Kirchner. The show was controversial, New York Times described it as "pathological." Seminal event, catalyst for reevaluation of nature/purpose of American art. The Ashcan School prevalent at the time. Nude Descending a Staircase by Duchamp, (who spent most of WWI in NY painting) was most aligned by critics, described as "an explosion in a shingle factory." Moving figure - sequence of overlaid film stills. Monochromatic palette/faceted figure -Cubism, figure in motion - Futurists.

Reliquary guardian figure (bieri), Fang, Gabon, lat 19th century. Wood, 1' 8" high.

Reliquary guardian figures, bieri, designed to sit on edge of cylindrical bark boxes of ancestral bones to ensure no harm would befall ancestral spirits. Portable reliquaries ideal to African nomadic population groups like the Fang. Rhythmic build up of forms suggest contained power. Proportions of the bieri emphasized the head - resembling an infant. Muscularity implies an adult. Representative for cycle of life - appropriate for cult of ancestors.

Diego Rivera (no picture)

Rivera was a Marxist who strove to make art that would serve people's needs. National Mexican style focused on history, with a popular, generally accessible aesthetic keeping with the Socialist spirit of Revolution. Ancient Mexico represents conflicts between indigenous people and Spanish colonizers, including important figures in Mexican history. Quetzalcoatl "feathered serpent," a major god in Mesoamerican pantheon at time of Spanish conquest, appears multiple times in Rivera's mural. The Aztecs associated him with wind, rain clouds, and life. Beneath the temple a tomb was found, looted in antiquity. Surrounding the tomb - beneath and around the pyramid were remains of at least 100 sacrificial victims. Most Mesoamerican groups invoked and appeased gods through human sacrifice. Might have also reflected Teotihuacan's militaristic expansion - victors often sacrificed captured warriors.

"Beautiful Lady" dance mask, Senufo, Côte d'Ivoire, late 20th century. Wood, ca. 1' high

Several masking groups converge to aid in transformation of important deceased persons into productive ancestors who can bring benefits to the living community. Music, dancing, costuming and feasting of many people is complex and transcends any one mask or character. Most masking cultures are agricultural - masquerades held to increase productivity of the fields, grow crops, and celebrate harvests. Senofu men mostly dance in context of Poro, main association for socialization and initiation - taking nearly 20 years to complete, Also perform at funerals and other public spectacles. Mask on last slide was a composite creature, which incarnates both ancestors and bush powers that protect and combat witchcraft, sorcery, malevolent spirits, and wandering dead. Men dance female masks (this one with a hornbill on the head), "beautiful lady" of heavy, terrorizing masculine masks of previous slide.

CHARLES SHEELER, Water, 1945Oil on canvas; 24" x 29".

Sheeler, born in Pennsylvania, (PAFA trained) traveled to Italy and France in 1909. Power generators built by Tennessee Valley Authority in 1930s. Sheeler's experience as a photographer influenced Precisionist style -emphasized geometric shapes in a hard-edged, clearly lit manner. Signified ingenuity in harnessing nature's power - idealized industry: workers never shown, machinery is pristine. Sheeler wrote: "Every age manifests itself by some external evidence. In a period such as ours when only a comparatively few individuals seem to be given to religion, some form other than the Gothic cathedral must be found. Industry concerns the greatest numbers—it may be true, as has been said, that our factories are our substitute for religious expression"

LE CORBUSIER, Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine, France, 1929.

Simple geometric aesthetic - Gropius and Mies van der Rohe (ch. 30) became known as International style because of widespread popularity. Le Corbusier adopted maternal grandmother's name. Trained in Paris and Berlin, he was also a painter, but greatest influence as architect. "Machine for living" - functional living space. On human scale, meeting physical/psychological needs: sun, space, vegetation, controlled temperature, good ventilation, insulation against harmful/undesired noise. Villa Savoye's original colors influenced by his machine inspired Purist style of painting - dark green base, cream walls, rose and blue windscreen. Inverted traditional design practice with heavy elements and living quarters above and light ones below, refusing to enclose ground story with masonry walls. Load of upper stories seems to hover lightly on columns. No traditional façade, inside and outside space intermingle. Much of interior is open space, thin columns support.

ALFRED STIEGLITZ, The Steerage, 1907 (print 1915). Photogravure (on tissue), 1' x 10".

Stieglitz took camera everywhere - wide variety of subject matter. Believed in making on "straight, unmanipulated" photographs - "to hold a moment, to record something so completely that those who see it would relive an equivalent of what has been expressed." The Steerage refers to steerage passengers the U.S. government sent back to Europe after refusing them entrance into the country. Stieglitz saw them on his voyage to Europe with wife and daughter when he ventured out of 1st class. Stieglitz's description reveals interest in formal elements of photography - a modernist focus. "It would be a picture based on related shapes and deepest human feeling - a step in my own evolution, a spontaneous discovery.

KAZIMIR MALEVICH, Suprematist Composition: Airplane Flying, 1915. Oil on canvas, 1' 11" x 1' 7".

Suprematists had utopian ideals - art could contribute to and improve society; these effort often surfaced during significant political upheaval. Wealthy Russians collected Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and avant-garde paintings; from these collections Russian artists were familiar with Fauvism, Cubism and Futurism. Russian Malevich believed supreme reality in world is "pure feeling," attached to no object - nonobjective forms in art. Used square as basic form, with relatives - straight line and rectangle. He believed all people would easily intuitively understand new art because of universality of pure shape and color. After Russian revolution, with Lenin in power of communist USSR, Malevich saw opportunity to wipe out past traditions to begin new culture. New regime heralded avant-garde art for short time, then promoted more "practical, realistic" art public could understand that would teach about new government. Malevich was horrified - true art could never be practical. Unappreciated, he gravitated to mathematics and geometry.

Vladimir Tatlin, Monument to the Third International, 1919-1920. Reconstruction of the lost model, 1992-1993.

Tatlin, a leader of Productivism, off shoot of Constructivism, named for his relief sculptures titled, Constructions. As Malevich, Tatlin believed Russian Revolution signaled end of hated old order. Productivists aspired to create new world, using industrialization to benefit all people. Initially believed non-objective art was ideal for new society; later made "functional art" -efficient stoves and workers' clothing. Commission - Department of Artistic Work for the People's Commissariat for Enlightenment to design building to honor Russian Revolution in 1919. Envisioned glass and iron building 1/3 taller than Eiffel Tower built in the center of Moscow - propaganda and new center. Never built due to poor economic situation. Models were lost, but drawings and photographs enabled reconstruction. 3 geometrically shaped chambers rotate on central axis - bottom, 1 year, lectures/meetings; middle, monthly, administrative; top, daily, information center, open-air news screen (illuminated at night) with instrument project words on clouds. Decreasing size paralleled decision-making hierarchy.

HENRI MATISSE, Woman with the Hat, 1905. Oil on canvas, 2'8" X 1' 11".

The Fauves first gained attention at the Salon d'Automne of 1905. Design so simplified and color so bright that a startled critic, Louis Vauxcelles, describe them as fauves, "wild beasts." Directness of Impressionism, built on Van Gogh and Gaugin, but went further with intense color juxtapositions for expression. Traditional subject matter: portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and nudes Never officially organized; within 5 years, most of the Fauves departed for strict adherence to principles and developed personal styles. Matisse painted wife, Amelie. Seemingly arbitrary colors and sketchiness of forms are shocking. He believed color could play primary role in conveying meaning.

EDWARD HOPPER, Nighthawks, 1942. Oil on canvas, 2' 6" x 4' 9".

Trained as commercial artist, studied in New York, then Paris. Returned to U.S., painted contemporary American city and country life. Inner space of diner paradoxical sense of safe refuge and vulnerable place. Feeling of loneliness from indifference of characters to one another as well as the echoing spaces. Muted, still, evokes national mind-set during Depression era. Theme of isolation of modern life - time suspended. Realist vision recalls 19th century artists Eakins and Tanner, but with simplified shapes, moving toward abstraction.

DOROTHEA LANGE, Migrant Mother, Nipomo Valley, 1935. Gelatin silver print. 1'1" x 9".

U.S. government initiated Resettlement Administration (RA) during the 1930s to oversee emergency aid programs for farm families struggling during the Depression. RA hired Lange to document living conditions of rural poor. After photography migratory pea pickers in CA, she stopped at a camp and found workers starving because crops had frozen the fields. Captured mixture of strength and worry in mother's face. Photo appeared in San Francisco newspaper and people rushed food to Nipomo to feed the hungry workers. "[I] saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. . . . There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her, and she seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me." - Lange

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, Robie House, Chicago, Illinois, 1907-1909.

Wright was born in Wisconsin, moved to Chicago, worked for Sullivan's firm. Set out to create "architecture of democracy." Believed in "natural" and "organic" buildings. Free individuals move within a "free" space. Nonsymmetrical design interacting spatially with natural surroundings. Organic unity of planning, structure, materials and site. "Prairie house" - long, sweeping, ground-hugging lines, unconfined by abrupt wall limits, capturing expansiveness of Midwest's great flatlands. Eliminated facade, extended roofs past walls, enclosed patios, strip windows provide unexpected light sources and glimpses of outdoors. Flow of interior space determined angular placement of exterior walls.

PABLO PICASSO, Gertrude Stein, 1906-1907. Oil on canvas, 3' 3" x 2' 8".

Writer, Gertrude and her brother, Leo moved from Pennsylvania to Paris where they held weekly salons for artists, writers, musicians, and collectors in their apartment to discuss progressive art and ideas - lectures, discussions, arguments would often last until dawn. The Steins were avid art collectors. Among the hundreds who visited included Picasso, Matisse, Cassatt, Duchamp, Stieglitz, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald . . . Picasso was 24 when he painted Gertrude, and hadn't painted from a model since he was 16. She posed about 80 times; but her face was painted at a later date without her modeling, after Picasso viewed statues from Pre-Roman Iberia (Spanish/ Portuguese peninsula), at the Louvre. (Pre-Roman Iberian sculptures had been influenced by the Greek and Phoenician cultures). When someone commented that Stein did not look like her portrait, Picasso replied, "She will."