Term paper on The Armory Show

The Armory Show (1913)

Twentieth-century America responded to new movements in art. One group (known as “The Eight”) focused on realistic, everyday scenes, earning the derisive nickname the ‘‘Ashcan School.” And in February 1913, a larger group of U.S. artists staged a show at New York ‘s National Guard Armory, which then toured Chicago , Philadelphia , and Boston . This huge exhibition of more than a thousand works by American and European artists was a watershed in the history of American art. Although many of the works were traditional, it was the avant-garde works of postimpressionism, cubism, fauvism, and expressionism, including ones by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marcel Duchamps, and Wassily Kandinsky, that astonished and sometimes outraged audiences. The Armory Show represented the first truly major exhibit of modern art in the United States .

Suggestions for Term Papers

1. How did the Armory Show influence American cultural tastes?

2. Discuss the influence of the Ashcan painters on American art.

3. What was the general reaction of critics and the public to the Armory Show?

4. What was ‘‘modern” about modern art?

5. Discuss the career of a prominent American artist active at the time of the Armory Show.

GENERAL SOURCES

American Art: From the Limners to the Eight . Ashland , KY : Ashland Oil, 1976. Catalog of an exhibition held at Huntington Galleries ( West Virginia ) from February to May 1976.

Leeds, Valerie A. The Independents: The Ashcan School and Their Circle from

Florida Collections . Winter Park , FL : George D. and Harriet W. Cornell Fine Arts Museum , 1996. Catalog of paintings in Florida collections.

MacLeod, Glen G. Wallace Stevens and Modern Art: From the Armory Show to Abstract Expressionism . New Haven , CT : Yale University Press, 1993. Interesting perspective of the relationship of twentieth-century art and literature in the work of the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet.

Milroy, Elizabeth. Painters of a New Century: The Eight and American Art . Milwaukee : Milwaukee Art Museum , 1991. Catalog of an exhibition held at the museum from September to November 1991.

Perlman, Bennard B. Painters of the Ashcan School: The Immortal Eight . (1979). Reprint. New York : Dover , 1988. Evolution of U.S. art after the Civil War, with a focus on members of the Ash Can School; originally published as The Immortal Eight .

———, ed. Revolutionaries of Realism: The Letters of John Sloan and Robert Henri . Princeton , NJ : Princeton University Press, 1997. Interesting and revealing documentary record of the correspondence between two of the artists of the Ash Can School.

Prown, Jules David. American Painting: From Its Beginnings to the Armory Show . New York : Rizzoli, 1987. Well-illustrated historical survey.

Zurier, Rebecca, et al. Metropolitan Lives: The Ashcan Artists and Their New York . Washington , DC : National Museum of American Art/Norton, 1995. Catalog of an exhibition held at the museum from November 1995 to March 1996.

SPECIALIZED SOURCES

The Armory Show: International Exhibition of Modern Art, 1913 . New York : Arno , 1972. 3 vols. Detailed catalog and collection of related documents providing insight into the nature of the show.

Brown, Milton W. The Story of the Armory Show . New York : Abbeville, 1988. Excellent description.

Green, Martin B. The Armory Show and the Paterson Strike Pageant . New York : Scribner, 1988. Informative history of the show within the political and social context of the times, including the strike of the Industrial Workers of the World in Paterson , New Jersey .

1913 Armory Show: 50th Anniversary Exhibition , 1963 . Utica , NY : Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, 1963. Reconstruction of the Armory Show held at the institute from February to March 1963.

Trapp, Frank A. The 1913 Armory Show in Retrospect . Amherst , MA : Amherst College , 1958. 34-page exhibition catalog for reconstructed exhibition held at Amherst College in 1958.

BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES

Braider, Donald. George Bellows and the Ashcan School of Painting . Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971. Brief biography of one of the artists who presented harsh realities in his work.

Glackens, Ira. William Glackens and the Eight: The Artists Who Freed American Art . (1984). Reprint. New York : Writers and Readers, 1990. Valuable insight into modern art provided by the son of one of The Eight.

Green, Eleanor, et al. Maurice Prendergast: Art of Impulse and Color . College Park : University of Maryland Art Gallery , 1976. Good biography of Prendergast along with a chronology and catalog of an exhibition held at the university gallery from October to November 1976. The exhibition toured in 1977.

Perlman, Bennard B. The Lives, Loves, and Art of Arthur B. Davies . Albany : State University of New York Press, 1998. Recent biography of an artist who was part of the movement.

———. Robert Henri: His Life and Art . New York : Dover , 1991. Concise account of a member of the movement by the expert writer.

PERIODICAL ARTICLES

Dudar, Helen. ‘‘To John Marin, Art Became ‘A Mad Wonder Dancing.”’ Smithsonian 20:52–58 (Feb. 1990). Insight into the modernist painter who participated in the Armory Show.

AUDIOVISUAL SOURCES

A Wave from the Atlantic . Alexandria , VA : PBS Video, 1996. Videocassette. 58 minutes. Part of the American Visions series showing American history through its art.

Armory Show—1913–1963 . Kent , CT : Creative Arts Television Archive, 1963. Videocassette. Tour of fiftieth anniversary re-creation of the Armory exhibition.

WORLD WIDE WEB

The Armory Show of 1913 . December 1996. http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/ slatin/20cpoetry/projects/relatproject/armory.html Brief description of the show and its impact; taken from Frank Trapp’s The Armory Show in Retrospect (1958).