American Modernism: Highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art

In this work, curator Smith (Ctr. for American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art) skillfully defines the modern art movement in its uniquely American context (1900–60), articulating the rich, complex, and multifaceted nature of the movement within its historical framework, which involved substantial social, political, and industrial changes. American artists were struggling with what it meant to be modern in America. They were challenged with expressing the invisible, the experiential, the emotional, and the abstract. Smith provides a solid foundation upon which readers can understand and appreciate the originality of this dynamic movement and its impact on artists of the era and beyond. This catalog showcases American art owned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It contains more than 100 plates of the museum's important holdings, which include photography, paintings, and sculpture by Georgia O'Keeffe, Marcel Duchamp, Marsden Hartley, Charles Sheeler, and Arthur Beecher Carles.