Mexico and American Modernism
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Ellen G. Landau
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Format: ClothPrice: $66.00
A revolutionary look at the profound impact of Mexico and its culture on the development of American modernism
In the years between the two world wars, the enormous vogue of "things Mexican" reached its peak. Along with the popular appeal of its folkloric and pictorialist traditions, Mexican culture played a significant role in the formation of modernism in the United States. Mexico and American Modernism analyzes the complex social, intellectual, and artistic ramifications of interactions between avant-garde American artists and Mexico during this critical period.
In this insightful book, Ellen G. Landau looks beyond the well-known European influences on modernism. Instead, she probes the lesser-known yet powerful connections to Mexico and Mexican art that can be seen in the work of four acclaimed mid-century American artists: Philip Guston (1913–1980), Robert Motherwell (1915–1991), Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988), and Jackson Pollock (1912–1956). Landau details how these artists' relationships with the Mexican muralists, expatriate Surrealists, and leftist political activists of the 1930s and 1940s affected the direction of their art. Her analysis of this aesthetic cross-fertilization provides an important new framework for understanding the emergence of Abstract Expressionism and the New York School as a whole.
“Given its expansive purview and its insightful and precise art historical analysis, Mexico and American Modernism is indispensable reading for anyone interested in a significant chapter in the history of artistic exchange between Mexico and the United States during the last century, as well as in many of the key transformations that defined modernist culture during the mid-twentieth-century.”—Luis M. Castañeda, Journal of Surrealism and the Americas
Publication Date: May 14, 2013
39 color + 71 b/w illus.
