Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This book, the third in the Art of the Twentieth Century series, considers works of art produced in Europe and the United States between the 1930s and the 1960s.

Arranged in four main parts, this abundantly illustrated book begins by examining aspects of the European avant-garde from the 1930s to the aftermath of the Second World War. The second part focuses on the emergence of Abstract Expressionism in the U.S., in particular the work of Jackson Pollock and important critics. Part three looks at "autonomous" high modernism of the early to mid-1960s and the contemporary, related modernist theorization of photography. The final part of the book addresses the reemergence in the 1950s and 1960s of the concerns of the 1920 avant-gardes operating in the so-called "gap between art and life."


Published in association with The Open University

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface (p. vii)
• Introduction (p. 1)
• Part 1 The European Avant-Garde in the 1930s
• Chapter 1 Art in Paris in the 1930s (p. 11)
• Chapter 2 Surrealism's other side (p. 53)
• Part 2 Art in America: from Realism to Abstraction
• Chapter 3 Realism and modernism (p. 75)
• Chapter 4 Jackson Pollock (p. 117)
• Chapter 5 Abstract Expressionism and masculinity (p. 147)
• Part 3 American Modernism in the 1960s
• Chapter 6 The critical terrain of 'high modernism' (p. 189)
• Chapter 7 Minimalism's situation (p. 215)
• Chapter 8 Vernacular modernism (p. 241)
• Part 4 The Resumption of the Avant-Garde
• Chapter 9 The 'neo-avant-garde' (p. 271)
• Chapter 10 How New York queered the idea of modern art (p. 315)
• Chapter 11 Warhol's 'Factory': painting and the mass-cultural spectator (p. 339)
• Chapter 12 In search of a revolutionary consciousness: further adventures of the European avant-garde (p. 363)
• Further reading (p. 399)
• Acknowledgement (p. 400)
• Index (p. 401)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Collaborating with Yale University Press, Britain's Open University has developed a series of four books exploring the diverse theoretical veins of modern art. This third volume in the series traces Modernism from totalitarian-dominated Europe to America from the 1930s through the 1960s. Edited by distinguished art historian Wood (Open Univ.; Art in Theory), the book includes essays by eminent historians such as Charles Harrison, Fiona Barber, and Robert Graham. The text's four sections move chronologically yet provide an understanding of the assorted stylistic eddies that swirled within a single period and movement. Instead of assembling a rigid history of linear theories, Wood chooses thematic focal points whose depths are carefully plumbed. This thought-provoking collection provides a range of well-wrought perspectives that will stimulate the minds of new art history students as well as readers more familiar with the material. Recommended for all art libraries.--Savannah Schroll, formerly with Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Paul Wood is senior lecturer in art history, The Open University.