1、Introduction to American ArtTopics for this course Abstract Expressionists Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Colour field artists: Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Helen Frankenthaler, Pop artists: Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Feminist Artists: Jud

2、y Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Realist & Super Realist artists: Edward Hopper, George Segal, Robert Estes, Audrey Flack, Duane Hanson. Prior Knowledge checkIn pairs, write down the following: Major historical events Economic factors Significant leaders New ideas / phi

3、losophies Social / technological shifts Cultural developmentsof the United States of America 1930-1980.HISTORICAL CONTEXTEvents that influenced Modern American ArtThe Armory Show 1913 This exhibition introduced Americans to the European Avant Garde art even though public was skeptical / scandalised!

4、 Featured major Post-Impressionists, Fauves, Cubists 1929 opening of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA)RIGHT: Marcel Duchamps Nude descending a Staircase and a parody from a newspaper, Seeing New York with a Cubist: the Reds descending a staircaseArmory Show highlightsWorks such as these created an art

5、istic renaissance in America. US artists were exposed to new styles and approaches.LEFT Matisse Luxury II (1908) ABOVE Picasso Woman with Pepper Pot (1910)Great Depression 1929 Great Depression. Destruction of the carefree life during the Roaring Twenties. Artists began to look internally for inspir

6、ation This led to an interest in Surrealism art of dreams and fantasy; removed from terrors of realityPrecisionism - 1930sAmerica becomes more industrialized Precisionism (1929-1935) aka Cubist Realism Style: Crisp, linear, flat planes, hard edged Themes: Industrialization, Modernization E.g. Charle

7、s Demuths I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold (1928), inspired by the poem “The Great Figure, by Williams Carlos Williams 1930s: Arrival of Diego Rivera and Mexican mural painters Famous for murals showing history of his country / left wing revolution in Mexico city Completed large scale murals in US e.g. Ma

8、n at at the Crossroads at Radio City in the Rockefeller Center, New York This mural, which contained a portrait of Lenin, was destroyed around midnight of Feb 9, 1934, by being chipped from the wall and smashed to powder. 1930s Social Realism Grant Woods 1930 work American Gothic showing a farmer an

9、d his spinster daughter. Works shows the Puritan ethics of the Mid West. Much art of this time was strongly regionalist.The New Deal 1929-1941 To relieve unemployment, Franklin D. Roosevelts WPA (Works Progress Admin) gave jobs to artists, writers and composers Murals for public buildings Plays / ba

10、llets for regional theatres 1930s: dominant art style was social realismEdward Hopper 1940s Realist artist Gas 1940 Nighthawks 1942Hoppers work captures the isolation and existential loneliness of the 20th CWorld War II period (1941-1945) Artists and intellectuals emigrate to America e.g. Albert Ein

11、stein, Mies Van der Rohe (architect), Aldous Huxley European artists like Marcel Duchamp, Mondrian, Marc Chagall settled in New York & become very influential.Rapid Industrialisation in WWII era The Wreck of the Ole 97 ( 1943) by Thomas Hart Benton captures the tension between the industrializat

12、ion of the American west and the disappearance of the Midwestern rural tradition Surrealism comes to America European Migrant painters Gorky and De Kooning explore surrealism, cubism, expressionismPsychic Automatism-Influenced by Freuds theories of Psychoanalysis is used by artists who want to acces

13、s their subconsciousRIGHT The Liver is the Cocks Comb Arshile Gorky 1944Post-War period (1945-1968) POSITIVES US emerges as a superpower US capitalist society, wealthy, high standard of living, attracted more migrants from Europe who enriched the arts scene (esp in NY)NEGATIVES However: destruction

14、of Pearl Harbour (atomic bomb) and Cold War atmosphere left people feeling a sense of depression and despair. 70% of Americans expected a war with USSR within 10 years Post War period cont. The New York School emerges 1st time an International style comes from USA Their art captured the anger / pain

15、 of a generation who had faced the Great Depression as young people and lived through the horrors of war. Einsteins Theory of Relativity and Jean-Paul Sartres theory of Existentialism becomes influentialAbstract Expressionism emergesLate 1940s Jackson Pollocks drip paintings (One: No 31, 1950) Colou

16、r field paintings of Mark Rothko (Red, Orange, Tan, and Purple, 1949)Vietnam and the Crisis of Confidence (1968-70) Society / Politics Anti-Vietnam / student Protests Race riots Civil Rights demonstrations Assassinations American moon landing Literature: Beat Poets Allan Ginsberg and Jack KerouacRic

17、hard Rauschenberg Retroactive I, 1963Pop artRoy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol challenge the boundaries of art and comment on mass production / consumer culture of USA.It was a celebration of the banal and familiar and countered the “seriousness of Abstract ExpressionismEnd of Pop Art - Super realism Below: Duane Hansons sculptures Right: Chuck Closes self portraitFeminism & the Womens movement (1970s)Response to Sexual Revolution- availability of the pill; Women seeking equal rights / opportunities; sexual freedomWomens arts - Cra