E-Catalogue
Art of the Mid-Century
| There has recently been a renewed interest in the Modern Movement in art and design, particularly of the period during the mid-twentieth century, broadly referred to in design circles as Mid-Century Modern. As an artistic movement, Modernism required a self-conscious break with the past in which new forms of expression were created as a celebration of the present. The traditional forms of art, literature, and society had become outdated, and it was therefore essential to sweep them aside and reinvent culture. Machine and mass-production were the tools of the change, which facilitated the massive housing boom following World War II. These sleeker and more "streamlined" products and forms that resulted have come to define the term "modern". By the late 1940s modern design had begun to enter every phase of the lives of middleclass Americans - in architecture, furniture, appliances, fabrics, and automobiles. The Modernist movement in art continued outside of and parallel to Abstract Expressionism, including a modernized figurative and realist tradition. This exhibition endeavors to demonstrate the breadth of the work created between 1945 and 1970, as well as to show that even some of the more traditional work was modern in spirit and form. Featured are works by Henry Botkin, Sally Michel, Ben Norris, Ted Davis, Werner Drewes, Vaclav Vytlacil, and Edward Lanning. |
