Native American Art and the New York Avant-Garde: A History of Cultural Primitivism (American Studies) [Hardcover]

W. Jackson Rushing (Author), William H. Goetzmann (Editor)

Book Description

Series: American Studies | Publication Date: March 1995

Avant-garde art between 1910 and 1950 is well known for its use of "primitive" imagery, often borrowed from traditional cultures in Africa and Oceania. Less recognized, however, is the use United States artists made of Native American art, myth, and ritual to craft a specifically American Modernist art. In this groundbreaking study, W. Jackson Rushing comprehensively explores the process by which Native American iconography was appropriated, transformed, and embodied in American avant-garde art of the Modernist period. Writing from the dual perspectives of cultural and art history, Rushing shows how national exhibitions of Native American art influenced such artists, critics, and patrons as Marsden Hartley, John Sloan, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Robert Henri, John Marin, Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, and especially Jackson Pollock, whose legendary drip paintings he convincingly links with the curative sand paintings of the Navajo. He traces the avant-garde adoption of Native American cultural forms to anxiety over industrialism and urbanism, post-World War I "return to roots" nationalism, the New Deal search for American strengths and values, and the notion of the "dark" Jungian unconscious current in the 1940s. Through its interdisciplinary approach, this book underscores the fact that even abstract art springs from specific cultural and political motivations and sources. Its message is especially timely, for Euro-American society is once again turning to Native American cultures for lessons on how to integrate our lives with the land, with tradition, and with the sacred.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Doctoral theses in their original form rarely make interesting and usable books, and it's a pity that the editors didn't distill this clumsily written and intellectually flabby thesis into a more cogent text. The discussion, which concentrates on paintings by artists of European descent representing scenes of Native American life and abstractions with overt or putative Native American iconography, is marred by unsupported assertions such as the statement that Jackson Pollock could have seen rock art because he went camping in the Mojave Desert. The repeated use of the phrase no doubt only raises doubts in the mind of the reader. Without a broader discussion of the influence of African, prehistoric European, and Oceanic motifs on primitivism and modern art, the contribution of Native American art seems overstated. Not recommended.
David McClelland, Temple Univ. Lib., Philadelphia
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: University of Texas Press; 1st edition (March 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0292755473
• ISBN-13: 978-0292755475
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 9.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,811,850 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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