Modern Art

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

20th Century Artists Rediscover Woodcut Printing (Art Digest, 1936)

An art review concerning a 1936 Brooklyn Museum exhibit of woodcut prints by avant-garde German, Russian and French artists. The reviewer details how the medium was rediscovered.

Before Franz Marc (1880 – 1916) was killed in the war he strengthened woodcut design in his departure from pretty and representational decoration toward more rugged abstraction…Almost all of these German, Russian and Frenchmen have concentrated their attention on human life. There is no pretty landscape, no picturesque architectural rendering, no still life, no sporting print. Froma a few prints the actual human form has been abstracted. One of these by Wassily Kandinsky ‘looks like a diagram of the contents of a madman’s waste basket’. The rest of the prints are chiefly tragic, mostly pitiful, occasionally derisive comments on the failure of man as an animal.

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The Psycho-Sexual Struggle within Amedeo Modigliani (Gentry Magazine, 1953)

Modigliani’s art reflects the psychological secret of his personality as a man, which in turn determines, the characteristics of his art. This longing for intellectual and spiritual self-discipline was constantly struggling with the demands of his overflowing sensual nature; his dreams of physical and sexual vigor were at odds with the failings of his body, his ailments, and his psycho-sexual infantilism; his desire for glory rebelled against the frustrations and poverty of reality.

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Reminiscences of August Rodin (Vanity Fair, 1918)

Not long after the death of Auguste Rodin (1840 – 1917) Paris-based artist Stephen Haweis (1878 – 1969) remembered his friendship with the French sculptor:

He loved flattery, as all human beings do, and would listen attentively to rhapsodies from almost anybody, though they do say that a pretty lady got more attention from him than a half-starved journalist.

Rodin proclaimed himself the culminator of one era of sculpture, the inspirer, and nearly the author of another. He was the father of various schools which are lumped under the title of Modern Art.

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Marcel Duchamp Returns to New York City (Vanity Fair, 1915)

Exempted from serving with the French military in World War I, the artist Marcel Duchamp returned to New York City where he triumphed during the Armory Show of 1913 – together he and his two brothers, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Jacques Villon, all showed their groundbreaking art. Marcel was the toast of New York and his modern painting, Nude Descending a Staircase was regarded as a masterwork.

In the attached VANITY FAIR article, Duchamp let’s it be known that he crossed the submarine-infested waters of the Atlantic to see American art.

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Arthur B. Davies (Vanity Fair, 1919)

An Arthur B. Davies (1862 – 1928) review written by VANITY FAIR art critic Frederick James Gregg following the opening of an exhibition highlighting the the private collection of N.E. Montross. The critic wrote:

Since the death of Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847 – 1917), Mr. Davies has been recognized, by persons abroad who are familiar with art in America, as the leading living painter on this side of the Atlantic.

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