Modern Art

Find old Modern Art articles here. Find information on Modern Painting, artists, 1920s modernists, newspaper articles about modernism and more.

Government Funding for the Arts Praised (Direction, 1938)

An editorial by the artist Philip Evergood (1901 – 1973) who believed that the Federal Arts Project of the Thirties had not simply made the lives of artists a little better but has also created a far better society:

The Federal Arts Project has pointed the way to an American Culture. It has set a weight in motion, it has let loose a force that has affected hundreds of thousands of lives. It has made murals depicting the history of our country and the lives of our people have been placed on the walls of our schools, hospitals, libraries and public buildings making them of greater beauty and of greater community interest – monuments and small sculpture have been added in equal numbers, easel paintings and prints now hang in thousands on the walls of public buildings…

Evergood likened this government funding to the Renaissance, when the church served as the artist’s patron and culture flourished.

Click here if you would like to read a 1939 article about the closing of the Federal arts funding program.
Click here to read a 1942 article by Rockwell Kent on the proper roll of American artists during wartime.

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Is There an American Art? (Current Opinion, 1922)

Prior to the establishment of the New York School in the 1940s, there has always been a popular belief among Europeans (and a few Americans) that the art produced in the U.S. was purely derivative and lacked true originality in conception and style. In the attached article from the early Twenties, some of these Europeans and Americans step forward and identify themselves while continuing to crack wise on the topic; however, the editors of ART NEWS will not suffer this abuse and they return fire offering plenty of evidence to the contrary.

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The New Objectivity (Current Opinion, 1919)

A review of the paintings and sculptures from the Weimer Republic and the manner in which that new art served to reflect the social upheaval that was taking place in Germany at that time. The article concerns itself primarily with one art exhibit in particular, the Spring Exhibition of the Berlin Secession (1919) and the two art factions who participated: there were the artists of Der Sturm a movement that existed prior to the war and a newer, post-war tribe; the November Group. Also displayed were the works of two painters who served in the Kaiser’s army and did not return; Franz Marc (1880-1916) and August Macke (1887-1914).

It is hoped by the German Expressionists and the artists of the New Objectivity that their art will serve as a tool for the destruction of Germany’s old order.


Click here to see a few trench war images by German Expressionist Otto Dix.

Click here to read about Expressionist woodcuts.


The New Objectivity held up a mirror to the political crises that was playing out all over Germany, click here to read about it…

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The Ill Fated One (Creative Art Magazine, 1932)

There is much that can be said about those unfortunate men whom life does not treat properly and to whom only death gives the glory they had so wanted to know…One finds them on thrones, in society, among artists, among bourgeoisie, and in the lower classes. Modigliani has his place on this list of grief. His name follows hard upon those tragic ones, Van Gogh and Gauguin.

A convergence of unhappy circumstances compelled Modigliani to live poorly and to die miserably.

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Grant Wood: Iowa as Muse (Art Digest, 1936)

An art review of the American painter, Grant Wood (1891 – 1942), and his efforts to illustrate a 1935 children’s book titled Farm on the Hillstyle=border:none.

Wood, a reigning member of the Regionalism School in American art, had come into the public eye some six years earlier with the creation of his painting, American Gothic, is quoted in this article concerning his creative process and the importance his vision of Iowa plays while painting:

…Mr Wood seceded from the neo-meditationists of Paris because when he began to meditate he realized that ‘all the really good ideas I’d ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.’

Click here to read a 1942 article by Rockwell Kent on the proper roll of American artists during wartime.

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C.R.W. Nevinson Rants About the American Art World (Literary Digest, 1922)

Sounding a good deal like Simon Cowell (b. 1960), British painter C.R.W. Nevinson (1889 – 1946) had some nasty words for the American people and the art market they created.

Here emphatically they have lost their courage. They are afraid to buy what they like; they rely entirely on the auction-room value. To read the American art news is like reading our Financial Times. The American art critic has no use for a picture which does not tell a story…


Pegged as a Futurist, Nevinson is best remembered for his W.W. I paintings of the Western Front, which can be read about here.

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