The American Century: Art & Culture, 1900-1950

This volume, covering the first half of the 20th century is a history of American Art as well as a permanent record of the exhibition held at the Whitney Museum. It includes 750 illustrations, some in colour, and descriptions of the exhibits set in the context of the political and social currents of the era.

To celebrate the coming millennium, the Whitney Museum of American Art is mounting a tremendous nine-month show covering American art from 1900 to 2000. The American Century: Art and Culture, 1900-1950, by curator Barbara Haskell, is the catalog for the first part of the exhibition. Included are images from painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, and design, providing a comprehensive overview of artistic and cultural ideas in the first half of this century. The book is broken into four chapters, beginning with "America in the Age of Confidence: 1900-1919," which includes beautiful John Singer Sargent paintings depicting American aristocratic life and silver objects from Tiffany and Company. Next comes the "Jazz Age in America: 1920-1929," with images documenting the importance of cinema: movie stills and an exquisite portrait of Gloria Swanson in lace. Also included in this period is a focus on industrial architecture as seen through the paintings of Charles Sheeler, Charles Demuth, and Joseph Stella, with their precise but almost abstract renderings of the changing American landscape. Chapter 3, "America in Crisis: 1930-1939," and chapter 4, "War and Its Aftermath: 1940-1949," include many photographs that map the changes in American life during this tumultuous period, from the dustbowl photos of Dorothea Lange to Weegee's pictures of the seamier side of New York City. Within the immensity of this catalog are discussions that relate the works of art to specific cultural phenomena and map the changing trends in the creation of American art. --Jennifer Cohen