AMERICAN MODERNS 1910-1960

FROM O’KEEFFE TO ROCKWELL

Dr. Matthew McLendon Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art

JUNE 14-SEPTEMBER 8 Museum of Art, Searing Wing

The first half of the twentieth century, after the Colonial period, is perhaps the most compelling and dynamic epoch in American history. Like its cousin Europe, America underwent rapid industrialization and urbanization founded upon expanding technological innovations. New populations flooded into America in search of the “American Dream” already a part of a collective world psyche. Yet, it was not a straight ascent to the peak of world power that America would inhabit by the century’s mid-point. Within those first fifty-odd years, there were two cataclysmic World Wars, the “dust bowl” and Great Depression; at times one may have wondered if “the last best hope of earth” that was America would endure. It was against this tumultuous backdrop that artists in America began responding to the changing world around them, often rejecting and reformulating artistic traditions to better reflect contemporary life.

These dynamic, violent, and often tenuous years are the setting for the exhibition American Moderns: 1910-1960: From O’Keeffe to Rockwell coming to The Ringling from the Brooklyn Museum. On display will be fifty-three paintings and four sculptures from this renowned collection of American art. The works range widely in subject matter and style. Marsden Hartley, Stuart Davis, and Arthur Dove, all key figures in American modernism, are represented. These are artists with whom you are most likely already familiar. The exhibition also presents an opportunity to explore the work of artists with whom you may not be as familiar. Byron Browne is represented with an arresting still life of geometric and biomorphic shapes. Fishers Island, c.1952, by Loren MacIver, combines the effects of realism and abstraction as counterbalances to materiality and spirituality—an approach fostered by her close relationships to poets e.e. cummings, Marianne Moore, and Lloyd Frankenberg.

The wide spectrum of work is treated in six thematic sections such as “Cubist Experiments,” “Nature Essentialized,” and “Americana” providing the viewer with the period’s primary artistic developments. The works comprising the exhibition have been selected to enable an opportunity to appreciate the vitality and diversity of American art from one of the most important periods in this nation’s history. I am pleased to be bringing this exhibition to the museum as it will greatly augment our own, small collection of American work from this time. One of our primary objectives in bringing traveling exhibitions to The Ringling is to offer work that is not wellrepresented in our own important collection so that we can widen our audience’s experience and knowledge of art. In addition to this special exhibition, you will find an adjacent focus gallery concentrating on Sarasota’s own important contribution to the aesthetics of this period, the Sarasota School of Architecture. I hope that you enjoy exploration of America’s not-too-distant past and the lessons its artists continue to teach us.

Members Only Preview

BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE EXHIBITION

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 5:00 PM - 7:OO PM

Museum of Art Loggia

Join fellow Members and be the first to see the special exhibition. Light bites and cash bar. Open to all members at all levels. RSVP: 941.360.7332 or email: memberRSVP@ringling.org

Gallery Walk And Talk

AMERICAN MODERNS: 1910-1960

THURSDAY, JULY 18, 6:00 PM

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 6:00 PM

Museum of Art, Searing Wing

In the fifty years encompassed by American Moderns, this country experienced transformative changes that permeated all aspects of American life and culture. Join us for these talks that will discuss some of the dramatic developments of this era as expressed through selected works in this exhibition.

Free for Members