Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Whiting examines the various manifestations of antifacist art, showing how each negotiated the competing demands of artistic conventions, aesthetic and political theories, and historical developments.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Whiting's study is indispensable for understanding how American artists responded to facism between 1933 and 1945. She considers overt propaganda, social realism, reevaluations of American history and heroes, abstraction, and use of myths in paintings and prints, but not in government-sponsored works, photographs, or sculpture. Whiting offers many insights as she finds new relationships between styles and political thought. She carefully explores social realism, proletarianism, and changes of vision. Beginning with antifacist prints in radical magazines, she offers new perspectives on many artists. Gropper is explored in depth; regionalist responses to facism are shown in Benton, Curry, and Wood. She gives a new analysis of Wood's Parson Weems' Fable, Blume's Eternal City, and Benton's The Year of the Peril. Most importantly, she discovers a new significance in the mythic imagery of the WW II paintings of Rothko and Gottleib; their paintings "yield antifacist meanings" as Whiting looks at them perceptively back through abstract expressionism. She also offers an enlightening comparison of Nazi use of myths versus US use during this period. There are extensive notes and bibliography, but unfortunately dark and tiny black-and-white illustrations dilute the book's impact. The work, however, creates a fresh, insightful reevaluation of this neglected period of American art. Highly recommended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. -W. L. Whitwell, Hollins College