Last Friday, The Davison Arts Center debuted a stunning collection of prints and lithographs from early twentieth century America. The exhibit, called Modern Times: American Graphic Arts from 1900-1950, was the final assignment for a Museum Studies course, and was entirely organized by Wesleyan Art History students under the supervision of Clare Rogan, curator of the Davison Arts Center and assistant professor of Art History.
“For the museum studies course, I have two goals,” Rogan said. “First, to introduce the students to the history of museums and current debates on museums. Second, to teach the students how an exhibition is organized, by having the class choose the prints, research them and write the labels.”
All of the prints in Modern Times were already in the archives of the Davison Arts Center, as they were part of a collection of generous donations by George W. Davison, who graduated from Wesleyan in 1892. A collector of art books and rare books, Davison, beginning in the 1930s, donated his entire collection of over 6,000 prints to Wesleyan and helped found the Davison Arts Center.
The themes in the exhibit ranged from depictions of city life and the urban poor, by artists such as Martin Lewis and Joseph Pennell, to scenes of American rural life by Regionalist painters Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood.
For Michelle Brown ’09, who expressed an interest in pursuing a career in curatorial studies, the course also offered a taste of the duties and responsibilities that come with organizing a public art exhibition.
“One of the things that intrigues me about this time period is that it marked a turning point for American art,” said Brown. “Although some artists continued to paint in dominant European traditions like Impressionism, many consciously broke away from those in order to focus on establishing a unique American artistic vocabulary.”
Yet this American vocabulary itself branched into many forms. John Sloan of the Ashcan school of art chose to depict gritty urban subjects like rowdy bars and crowded street corners. Artists like Louis Lozowick, on the other hand, directed their gaze toward the new architectural splendors that were beginning to give New York City, and by extension America, a new and distinct visual identity.
Brown, who was responsible for researching and writing the label for Louis Lozowick’s print “Brooklyn Bridge,” said that this image resonated with her as a native of Queens, New York.
“We see the Brooklyn Bridge today and it is such an old, iconic image. But at the time it was brand new and exciting for people,” she said. “The bridge was a new structure in which Americans could invest their own national identity.”
Lozowick’s print captures the marvels of the new technology and infrastructure of the Brooklyn Bridge in his unique multi-linear perspective. The viewer’s eye is simultaneously directed through the picture, all the way to the tiny pedestrians who are disappearing into the distant mist, as well as up and out, along each of the ropeways that seem to enclose him within a dreamy, web-like structure.
In addition to architecture, some artists also chose to depict the younger, flashier generation of people in New York City.
Shadow Dance, the featured image of Modern Times, is an etching done in drypoint and sandpaper by Martin Lewis, an Australian-born artist who immigrated to the United States in 1900. In the early 1920’s Lewis also drew and painted in Japan. As a consequence, Japanese prints continued to influence his work even when he returned to the States.
When Shadow Dance was presented to the American public in 1928 along with a group of similarly themed lithographs, it was extremely well received. Today, many of Lewis’s prints remain rare and much sought-after.
“I am delighted by the hard work the students put into it,” Rogan said of the exhibition. “This is the third time I have taught the museum studies course, and this one ran incredibly smoothly.”
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