Diverse Modernisms, 1935–1955

December 13, 2018 – July 30, 2019
East Building, Ground Level - Gallery 106A

Adolph Gottlieb, *Pictograph*, 1946/1947, watercolor with scraping on wove paper, Gift of Ruth Cole Kainen, 2006.57.9

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

In the years around World War II, modernist art produced in the United States was varied in style and subject matter. Despite many barriers to inclusion that persist to the present, art from this period was created by an increasingly diverse set of practitioners working in a range of media, as reflected by the works in this installation. The wiry crowd in a Norman Lewis pen drawing faces off with the swirling forms of an early Jackson Pollock print that hints at his later drip paintings. Ilse Bing and Roy DeCarava used shadows and stone to make New York City a photographic canvas for abstracted forms. An Adolph Gottlieb watercolor invents a language of pictorial symbols, while a Gordon Parks photograph layers a Harlem window display with the street’s reflection. On view is not a cohesive vision of American modernism, but rather a cross section of many-sided, even incompatible, ambitions.

About this Series
American Art, 1900–1950: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs

During a period fueled by enormous urban growth and technological changes, riven by world wars, and rocked by new modes of thought, American artists explored many diverse means to express their changing experience and environment. Prints, drawings, and photographs were vital media through which artists pursued radical experiments in form, figuration, and abstraction. Reevaluating European traditions, they developed new ways of seeing the modern world around them.

Complementing the American modernist paintings and sculptures in the adjacent galleries, these rotating installations feature prints, drawings, and photographs by American artists working in the first half of the 20th century. By looking at pairs or groups of artists, or at broader themes such as abstract portraiture or the Machine Age, the installations spark conversations between established and lesser-known figures in American modernism and highlight the era’s full range and complexity.

From close to the ground, we look sharply up at three skyscrapers that nearly meet in the empty sky in this black and white photograph. The building in front of us has more than twenty-five stories, each of which is lined with windows. The building to our left is deep in shadow as it zooms steeply into space. Sun warms the top half of the building to our right. Only a sliver of sky is visible between the left and center building, and where the three meet in the deep distance.

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

Berenice Abbott, Canyon, Broadway and Exchange Place, 1936, gelatin silver print, The Marvin Breckinridge Patterson Fund for Photography, 2000.148.1

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

Ilse Bing, Self-Portrait, 1953, gelatin silver print, Gift of Richard and Judith Smooke, 2003.68.1

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

Harry Callahan, Detroit, c. 1943, printed c. 1980, dye imbibition print, Gift of the Callahan Family, 2011.95.39

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

Ralston Crawford, Untitled, 1939, collage with gouache and gelatin silver photograph on wove paper, Gift of Neelon Crawford, 2001.133.5

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

Roy DeCarava, Sun and Shade, 1952, gelatin silver print, Corcoran Collection (Gift of Joshua P. Smith), 2015.19.4297

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

Dorothy Dehner, Despite the Many Sins and Small Diversions, c. 1948, gouache with pen and black ink on wove paper, Gift of The Judith Rothschild Foundation, 1997.63.4

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

Robert Frank, Tickertape/New York City, 1951, gelatin silver print, Robert Frank Collection, Gift of Robert Frank in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1990.28.29.7

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

Robert Frank, Street Line/New York, 1951, gelatin silver print, Robert Frank Collection, Gift of Robert Frank in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1990.28.29.20

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

Adolph Gottlieb, Pictograph, 1946/1947, watercolor with scraping on wove paper, Gift of Ruth Cole Kainen, 2006.57.9

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

Sid Grossman, Black Christ Festival, Panama, c. 1945, gelatin silver print, Anonymous Gift, 2007.107.2

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

György Kepes, Photogram (Yellow and White Circles), 1939, gelatin silver print with gouache, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase with funds from the Women's Committee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art), 2015.19.5092

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

André Kertész, Skywriting, 1937-1940, gelatin silver print, Gift of The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, 1999.39.1

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

Norman Lewis, Untitled, 1946, pen and black ink on bond paper, Gift of Billy E. Hodges, 2013.7.1

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

Lisette Model, Reflections, New York, 1939-1940, gelatin silver print, Gift of Gerhard Sander and Kathleen Ewing, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1990.119.1

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

Gordon Parks, Window/Mysticism, Harlem, New York, 1952, gelatin silver print, Corcoran Collection (The Gordon Parks Collection), 2015.19.4607

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

Jackson Pollock, Emiliano Sorini, Untitled, 1944/1945 (printed 1967), engraving and drypoint in brown-black on white Italia paper, The William Stamps Farish Fund, 2009.4.2

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955

Charles Sheeler, Counterpoint, 1949, conté crayon over graphite on wove paper, Gift of Daniel J. Terra, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1991.47.1