Learning Series Course: Communities and Causes—Perspectives on American Artists, 1920–1940

Location to be provided upon RSVP

Learning Series Members in the Curate Your Own Program

The decades surrounding the opening of the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1931 were a time of remarkable social, economic, cultural, and political transformation in the United States. These events, from immigration to the Great Depression, deeply affected American artists, who often created work in direct response to their social and political context. In this two-part course, teaching fellow Paula Burleigh will focus on two themes—artistic responses to political and social causes, on the one hand, and the creation of informal artist communities, on the other—as way to explore key figures, artworks, and trends in American art during the 1920s and 1930s.

This two-part course is the final installment of a continuing program of Learning Series events spanning the months leading up to the opening of the Whitney’s new building in spring 2015. The series began with “Jeff Koons in Context: American Art at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century”, offered in summer and fall 2014, and continued with “Women in American Art, 1950–1970.”

Learning Series members are invited to select one two-part course:

Option 1: Saturdays, March 7 and 14, 2:30–3:30 pm
Option 2: Saturdays, March 7 and 14, 4:30–5:30 pm
Option 3: Thursday, March 19, and Wednesday, April 1, 6:30–7:30 pm

Open to Learning Series members. Become a member, or upgrade your membership by calling (212) 570-3641.