The American Century: Art & Culture 1900-1950

New York: Whitney Museum of American Art / W. W. Norton, 1999. Softbound. VG, but for some minor wear to edges and corners.. Black and illustrated wraps with red lettering. 408 pp., 721 mostly color plates and illustrations. A blockbuster of a show, this book serves as the catalogue for the first half of a two-part exhibition, represents the first fifty years of the 20th century. A second exhibition focused on the second half. A very useful catalogue, with a wonderful topic-specific bibliography at the rear. A wonderful copy. "This book considers American art as a response to political, social, and economic conditions. It opens at the start of the century, when boundaries between high art and all that simmered beneath it were collapsing. In these pages, we are able to see the dramatic changes that characterized art in the first half of the century. We discover why the New York Armory Show of 1913 was such a shock to many artistic sensibilities; how Alfred Stieglitz and his circle drove photography toward modernism, a movement that would eventually include all the arts; and how the Depression (and the WPA) shaped a generation of artists, leaving a rich, public legacy in photography, painting, literature, and architecture. By the century's midpoint, the artistic output of this still young nation was astonishing."--Jacket. Published on the occasion of the exhibition ... held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, part I, 1900-1950 is on view from April 23 to August 22, 1999 and part II, 1950-2000 is on view from September 26, 1999 to January 23, 2000.. A second exhibition focused on the second half of the 20th century. A very useful catalogue, with a wonderful topic-specific bibliography at the rear. A wonderful copy.