Early 20th Century Art

The Great Depression & Regionalism

Chapter 33AP Art History

Mr. English

Between Wars

• Western Europe is in turmoil• Stock Market crash of 1929 sets off the Great

Depression• Depression affects artists and museums.• Government programs help fund the arts.• The arts in turn play a role in documenting, raising

awareness, and social justice.• Regionalism – American scene painters reacting to

abstraction show the Midwestern way of life.

The Political Side of Picasso

• Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937, oil on canvas, 11’5”x 25’6”.• Commissioned to make a work for the Spanish pavilion at the Paris

International Expo.• Responds to the Nazi’s bombing of Guernica.• Shows the innocent suffering from the attack.• How does Picasso’s style work with his concept?

Documentary Photography• Dorothea Lange,

Migrant Mother, Nipomo Valley, 1935, Silver gelatin print.

• Hired by the government to document depression.

• Depicts California crop pickers.

• How does Lange’s composition convey her concept?

Depression Painting

• Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942, oil on canvas, 2’6”x 4’9”.

• Depicts the loneliness and isolation of modern life during the depression.

• Stops time and emphasizes empty space.

African Americans’ Struggle

• Jacob Lawrence, No. 49, The Migration Series, 1940-41, tempera on masonite, 1’6” x 1’.

• 60 painting series with captions.

• Depicts the migration of African Americans from the South to the North.

• Simplified shapes and compositions.

• What’s happening in this image?

Regionalism• Grant Wood, American

Gothic, 1930, oil on board, 2’6” x 2’8”.

• Scenes of rural Iowa• Father and daughter of a

typical Midwest farm – traditional American farmer.

• Differing reactions.• Landscapes of rolling hills

and simplified forms.

Regionalism

• Thomas Hart Benton, Pioneer Days and Early Settlers, State Capitol Building, Jefferson City, 1936, mural.

• Part of a series of murals titled A Social History of the State of Missouri.• Shows the working class, agriculture, & interaction with Native

Americans with fluid compositions/elastic figures.

Mexican Muralist

• Diego Rivera, History of Mexico fresco murals, National Palace, Mexico City, 1929-35.

• Mexican artist of large scale didactic murals in both Mexico & US .• Highly decorative and full of bold colors.

What to Study?• Movements & ISM’s – know what they are about and who the

major names/works are:– Fauvism– German Expressionism– Cubism– Futurism– Dada– Photography– Precisionism– Surrealism– De Stijl– Bauhaus– Architecture– Sculpture– Political / Regional