The art of swinging left in the 1930s: Modernism, Realism, and the Politics of the left in the murals of Stuart Davis

• Autores: Jody Patterson
• Localización: Art history: journal of the Association of Art Historians, ISSN 0141-6790, Vol. 33, Nº. 1, 2010, págs. 98-123
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article addresses the relations between modern art, public muralism, and leftist politics during the 1930s in the work of Stuart Davis. While this period in American art is largely associated with the dominance of fi gurative works and the promotion of what was perceived as a tradition of ‘native’ realism, the art scene was considerably more factional and complex than current art-historical scholarship suggests. In addressing Davis’s approach to muralism, this article examines the frequent characterization of realism and modernism as antipodes on the aesthetic spectrum and explores the potential for understanding modernist forms as realist. Furthermore, it seeks to offer an alternative to the ‘isolationist’ emphasis characterizing standard accounts of American artistic production in the 1930s, by establishing a dialogue with the theories and practices pursued by other modernists on the left such as Fernand Léger, who similarly understood his approach to modernism as decidedly realist.