Cross listed with AMCULT 244.001

The 20th-century United States was the emblem of all things modern, but how would Americans make a modern art? This lecture/discussion class surveys art and the visual and material environment from the emergence of the United States as a world power in the 1890s to the questioning of the "American Way of Life" by Pop and activist artists during the era of the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War. In lectures, discussion, and original hands-on-research, we will examine the work of such celebrated figures as Frank Lloyd Wright, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O'Keeffe, Isamu Noguchi, Edward Hopper, Walker Evans, Andy Warhol, and Diego Rivera, but also the culture of consumerism and emergent racial and ethnic identities—in media from painting to furniture to photography to graphic design and propaganda posters--in which they worked.

This class includes work with original art in the University of Michigan Museum of Art and a mandatory field trip to the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Estimated cost of materials: $100 or more, but less than $150.

HISTART Concentration Distributions: D. Europe and the U.S., 4. Modern and Contemporary.

Textbooks:
Frances Pohl, Framing American Art, 4th edition vol 2 (required),
Patricia Hills, Modern Art in the U. S. A. (required)
plus online readings.

Recommended for beginners who would like background reading:
Paul Boyer, American History: A Very Short Introduction;
Anne D'Alleva, Look! The Fundamentals of Art History (any edition).

Copies of all of these books will be available on reserve in the Fine Arts Library.