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Home>Exhibitions>Past>2018>Diverse Modernisms, 1935–1955

# Diverse Modernisms, 1935–1955

December 13, 2018 – July 30, 2019East 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.

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

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955
Mark Tobey, *New York*, 1944, tempera on paperboard, Gift of the Avalon Foundation, 1976.32.1

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955
Sylvia Wald, *In Flight*, 1952, color serigraph on wove paper, Gift of Jacob Kainen, 2002.98.244

Diverse Modernisms 1935–1955
Charles White, Taller de Gráfica Popular, *Awaiting His Return*, 1945, lithograph in black on wove paper, Gift of Jacob Kainen, 2002.98.72

**Organization:** Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington

**Passes:** Admission is always free and passes are not required

Alfred Stieglitz and His CircleSeptember 30, 2016–April 11, 2017

Made in America: Radical FiguresApril 12–November 15, 2017

Machine Age ModernismNovember 17, 2017–May 29, 2018

Alfred Stieglitz and John MarinJune 1–December 10, 2018

Diverse Modernisms, 1935-1955December 13, 2018–July 30, 2019

American Surreal: Arshile Gorky and Nathan LernerOngoing from July 31, 2019

Special Installations

Exhibitions

American Prints

American Drawings

Photographs

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