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Mumford on Modern Art in the 1930s Paperback – December 2, 2008

by Lewis Mumford (Author), Robert Wojtowicz (Editor)

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Although Lewis Mumford is widely acknowledged as the seminal American critic of architecture and urbanism in the twentieth century, he is less known for his art criticism. He began contributing to this field in the early 1920s, and his influence peaked between 1932 and 1937, when he was art critic for the New Yorker. This book, for the first time, assembles Mumford's important art criticism in a single volume. His columns bring wit and insight to bear on a range of artists, from establishment figures like Matisse and Brancusi to relatively new arrivals like Reginald Marsh and Georgia O'Keeffe. These articles provide an unusual window onto the New York art scene just as it was casting off provincialism in favor of a more international outlook. On a deeper level, the columns probe beneath the surface of modern art, revealing an alienation that Mumford believed symptomatic of a larger cultural disintegration.

Many of the themes Mumford addresses overlap with those of his more familiar architectural criticism: the guiding role of the past in stimulating creativity in the present, the increasing congestion of the modern metropolis, the alarming lack of human control over modern technology, and the pressing need to restore organic balance to everyday living. Though he was open to new movements emanating from Europe, Mumford became the chief advocate of a progressive American modernism that was both socially aware and formally inventive.

Mumford on Modern Art in the 1930s

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Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) is well known as an outspoken critic of modern architecture, urban life, technology and American culture, but his art criticism has largely been forgotten. Art historian Wojtowicz (Lewis Mumford and American Modernism) remedies this by gathering Mumford's art reviews for the New Yorker from 1932 to 1937. In these perceptive essays, Mumford aired his views on the exhibitions of European and American painters, photography, industrial design and decorative arts. He favored certain painters—especially John Marin, Georgia O'Keeffe, Albert Pinkham Ryder and Thomas Hart Benton—but he paid equal attention to many lesser-known artists. His criticisms were seldom strident, but he didn't hesitate to censure styles such as abstraction and surrealism when they displayed nihilistic tendencies, or to take institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art to task when he felt they weren't fulfilling their missions. Mumford's prose is accessible and witty, and although the pieces seem dated, they're worth reading for their insights into the art world between the two wars. An essay entitled "The Metropolitan Milieu," published in a festschrift for Alfred Stieglitz, with its emphasis on the dehumanizing aspects of the modern city—a familiar theme in Mumford's architectural writings—rounds out this impressive collection. Illus. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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"Superbly crafted little essays, Lewis Mumford's New Yorker pieces called 'The Art Galleries' well deserve this handsome republication. They offer supremely tasteful guided tours of the galleries and museums of Manhattan at the time when the canon of Western art, including modernism, was being secured, against a background of tension between abstraction and realism and between aestheticism and social commitment. The essays are a gift for our own troubled times from one of the great humane and versatile critics of the twentieth century; they offer the reassurance of urbanity, poise, and commitment to art as a primary social necessity."—Alan Trachtenberg, Neil Grey Emeritus Professor of English, Yale University

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Product details

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: University of California Press (December 2, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0520258088
ISBN-13: 978-0520258082
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: Be the first to review this item
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,732,881 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #30051 in Books > Arts & Photography > History & Criticism > Criticism
- #50135 in Books > Arts & Photography > History & Criticism > History

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