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Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > From 1900 > Design styles > Modernist design & Bauhaus
A New American Sculpture, 1914-1945 is the first publication to
situate the individual contributions of Gaston Lachaise, Robert
Laurent, Elie Nadelman, and William Zorach into a compelling
constellation of artists with shared aesthetic and social concerns.
Although each European-born, American artist cultivated his own
distinct style, their creative priorities were all deeply rooted in
quiet composition, synthetic approaches to anatomy, and
architectural unity of curves and volume. At a time when abstract
forms were popular, Lachaise, Laurent, Nadelman, and Zorach were
all ultimately in favor of maintaining the integrity of the human
body to explore modernist styles. This handsome book underscores
their unrelenting search for a novel American visual tradition at
the intersection of modernism, historic visual culture, and
contemporary popular imagery. Distributed for the Portland Museum
of Art Exhibition Schedule: Portland Museum of Art
(05/26/17-09/08/17) Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis,
Tennessee (10/14/17-01/07/18) Amon Carter Museum of American Art
(02/17/18-05/13/18)
Shine allures and awakens desire. As a phenomenon of perception
shiny things and materials fascinate and tantalize. They are a
formative element of material culture, promising luxury, social
distinction and the hope of limitless experience and excess. Since
the early twentieth century the mass production, dissemination and
popularization of synthetic materials that produce
heretofore-unknown effects of shine have increased. At the same
time, shine is subjectified as "glamor" and made into a token of
performative self-empowerment. The volume illuminates genealogical
as well as systematic relationships between material phenomena of
shine and cultural-philosophical concepts of appearance, illusion,
distraction and glare in bringing together renowned scholars from
various disciplines.
This study looks at the architectural transformation of Cleveland
during its "golden age" - roughly the period between post-Civil War
reconstruction and World War I. By the early twentieth century,
Cleveland, which would evolve into the fifth largest city in
America, hoped to shed the gritty industrial image of its
rapid-growth period and evolve into a city to match the political
clout of its statesmen like John Hay and wealth of its business
elites such as John D. Rockefeller. Encouraged by the spectacle and
public response to the Beaux-Arts buildings of the Chicago World's
Exposition of 1893, the city embarked upon a grand scheme to
construct new governmental and civic structures known as the
Cleveland Plan of Grouping Public Buildings, one of the earliest
and most complete City Beautiful planning schemes in the country.
The success of this plan led to a spillover effect that prompted
architects to design all manner of new public buildings with
similar Beaux-Arts stylistic characteristics during the next three
decades. With the group plan realized, civic leaders - with the
goal of expanding the city's cultural institutions to match the
distinction of its civic centre - established its counterpart in
University Circle, creating a secondary group plan, the first
cultural centre in the country.
They were not only two of the outstanding artists of the Bauhaus,
but also a well-known couple. Their many famous works and the
artists they influenced as teachers and role models bear witness to
their life and work. But that is not all, as another ingenious
couple literally shows us. The photographer duo Lake Verea has
joined forces with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation to trace
the material and intellectual traces of their artistic creativity
in their estate. Correspondence with Bauhaus colleagues, tubes of
paint and fabric fibers are captured with an extraordinary feel and
vividness. Seeing the objects gives wings to the imagination. For
inevitably, one sees the hands of the artists at work, who formed
their very own contribution to 20th century art history from these
objects, conversations and trains of thought.
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