America Is Hard to See

May 1–Sept 27, 2015

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In the 1930s and 1940s, many American artists explored the interconnections between the real and the imagined, making the familiar unsettling and strange. They were particularly influenced by Surrealism, a literary and artistic movement that originated in Paris in the 1920s, whose practitioners tapped into the subconscious to create dreamlike narratives and scenes. American artists especially favored the work of Salvador Dalí and René Magritte, Europeans with strong ties to the tradition of figurative painting.

The term “realism” has many connotations but broadly refers to believable depictions of the observable world. Most of the artists represented here were academically trained and therefore had full command of traditional techniques. Peter Blume and Louis Guglielmi, for example, used the tools of illusionistic representation to conjure fantastic realms. Others, including Edward Hopper, more subtly tweaked the conventions of realism, turning the everyday into something psychologically charged and even sinister. Between these poles, Magic Realist artists Jared French and George Tooker precisely rendered situations that at first glance appear ordinary but ultimately prove unfamiliar and often disturbing. Others, such as Man Ray and Joseph Cornell, used collage and found images and objects to create intricate tableaux, like Cornell’s Rose Castle, directly drawn from our world and yet removed from it.

Below is a selection of works from this chapter.

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In Joe Jones’s American Farm, a dark cloud hanging ominously over an unforgiving, windswept terrain captures the imperiled existence of American farmers in the 1930s. Jones completed this painting after observing severe conditions while working for the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal initiative aimed to alleviate rural poverty during the Great Depression. The ruined countryside offers a dramatic illustration of the combined effects of drought, poor land management, and soil erosion that devastated Midwestern farms.

Yet Jones did more than simply paint his observations for the historical record. He pointedly exaggerated the scene, lending it an almost mythic sense of struggle. The sun peeking through the clouds over the lone farmhouse and listing barn perched resolutely on the ridge all hint at the unbowed resilience of American farm life.

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America Is Hard to See

Rose Castle

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Joe Jones (1909-1963), American Farm, 1936

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On the Hour

America Is Hard to See

Rose Castle

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Joe Jones (1909-1963), American Farm, 1936

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition in the Whitney's collection

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection