Regionalism

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Regionalism

• A reaction against the modernism of the Armory
  Show.
• Objective, representational art based on American
  life.
• Hopper said "A nation's art is greatest when it
  reflects the character of it's people".

Georgia OKeeffe Harlem Renaissance Grant
Wood Edward Hopper Dorothea Lange
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Georgia OKeeffe(1887-1986)
Settled in New Mexico later in life known for
her paintings of the American Southwest Subjects
usually include flowers, bones, rocks and
landscapes Aesthetics usually organic shapes
up-close with crisp edges and many gradated parts
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Georgia OKeeffeRed Canna, 1923.
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Georgia OKeeffeHorses Skull on Blue, 1930.
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Georgia OKeeffeMusic, Pink and Blue, 1919.
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Georgia OKeeffeIris, 1927.
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Georgia OKeeffe, Ram's Head, White Hollyhock and
Little Hills, 1935.
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The Harlem Renaissance

• The northeast section of Manhattan island was
  home to many African Americans.
• During the decade of the 1920's witnesses a huge
  explosion of African Americans artists of all
  types from this area of the city- music,
  literature and visual art.

Aaron Douglas Jacob Lawrence James Van Der Zee
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Jacob Lawrence(1917-2000) One of the most famous
African-American artists of the 20th
Century Known for Great Migration series as
part of the Harlem Renaissance Flat overlapped
shapes indicative of Matisse
Jacob Lawrence, 1941.
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Jacob Lawrence The Black Press Urged the People
to Leave the South(Panel 34 of The Migration
Series)1940-41, Tempera on gesso on composition
board
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"Around the time of WWI, many African-Americans
from the South left home and traveled to cities
in the North in search of a better life.
Jacob Lawrence, The Great Migration, Part I,
1940-41.
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Jacob Lawrence The Studio, 1977.
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Aaron Douglas(1898-1979) Native of Topeka,
Kansas moved to New York City in 1925 Developed
an abstract style influenced by African art as
well as the emerging Art Deco
Aesthetics Flat, solid shapes Transparent
Atmospheric perspective (dark in foreground)
Aaron Douglas, Into Bondage, 1936.
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Aaron Douglas, Aspects of Negro Life from Slavery
through Reconstruction, 1934.
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James Van Der Zee, Couple Wearing Raccoon Coats
with a Cadillac, 1932.
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James Van Der Zee, The Wedding Party, 1926.
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James Van Der Zee, Dancing Girls, 1928.
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Grant Wood Born in Iowa best known for
depicting scenes of the rural American
Midwest Studied at the Art Institute of
Chicago Though his forms are usually smooth and
rounded, he was greatly influenced by the clarity
in the landscapes of 15th-century Flemish Masters
like Van Eyck.
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Grant Wood, Fall Plowing, 1931.
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Grant Wood, Daughters of the American Revolution,
1932. (Cincinnati Art Museum)
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In making these paintings, as you may have
guessed, I had in mind something which I hope to
convey to a fairly wide audience in America --
the picture of a country rich in the arts of
peace a homely lovable nation, infinitely worth
any sacrifice necessary to its preservation. Grant
Wood, in a statement accompanying his final
painting
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Grant Wood American Gothic 1930.
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American Gothic house in Eldon, Iowa
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Edward Hopper Known for painting landscapes and
cityscapes with a strong light source Very
lonely, calm, isolated paintings
Edward Hopper,Self-Portrait, 1925-30.
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Edward Hopper, Early Sunday Morning, 1930.
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Edward Hopper, Prospect Street, Gloucester, 1928,
Watercolor.
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Edward Hopper, Early Morning Sun, 1952.
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Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942.
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Dorothea Lange With the onset of the Great
Depression, Lange turned her camera lens from the
studio to the street. Her studies of unemployed
and homeless people captured the attention of
local photographers and led to her employment
with the federal Farm Security Administration
(FSA). From 1935 to 1939, Lange's work for the
FSA brought the plight of the poor and forgotten
- particularly sharecroppers, displaced farm
families, and migrant workers - to public
attention. Distributed free to newspapers across
the country, her poignant images became icons of
the era.
Dorothea Lange in 1936.
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Lange's most well-known picture is titled
"Migrant Mother." The woman in the photo is
Florence Owens Thompson, but Lange apparently
never knew her name.
I saw and approached the hungry and desperate
mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not
remember how I explained my presence or my camera
to her, but I do remember she asked me no
questions. I made five exposures, working closer
and closer from the same direction. I did not ask
her name or her history. She told me her age,
that she was thirty-two. She said that they had
been living on frozen vegetables from the
surrounding fields, and birds that the children
killed. She had just sold the tires from her car
to buy food. There she sat in that lean-to tent
with her children huddled around her, and seemed
to know that my pictures might help her, and so
she helped me. There was a sort of equality about
it.
Dorothea Lange,Migrant Mother, 1936.
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Dorothea Lange, Japanese-American Internment,
c1942.
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Dorothea Lange, An Abandoned farm northof
Dalhart Texas, June 1938.
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Dorothea Lange, Migrant Workers Near Manteca, CA,
1938.
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Dorothea Lange, Sharecropper's child suffering
from rickets and malnutrition, 1938.
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Dorothea Lange, San Francisco Social Security
Office, 1937.
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Dorothea Lange, Texas Tenant Farmer in
California. Marysville Migrant Camp, September
1935.