When Abstract Expressionism burst on the American scene in the 1940s, it elbowed another kind of American expressionism off the stage. Vivid evocations of the poor and disenfranchised in paintings by Jack Levine, Bernece Berkman and many others were now seen as stodgy and unsophisticated. In American Expressionism: Art and Social Change 1920-1950, cultural historian Bram Dijkstra argues that a generation of important left-wing artists, many of them Jewish, were the victims of intellectual, political and corporate interests bent on promoting a brighter, shinier United States. Unfortunately, Dijkstra undercuts his thesis with a haranguing tone, unconvincing analyses of individual works, and a dated view of abstraction as inherently "anti-humanist." His sweeping denunciation of "Nordic" (i.e., white, Protestant) artists leads him to view even an heroically scaled painting of a black soldier by John Steuart Curry—a "Nordic" artist collected by the NAACP—as a racist cartoon. At the heart of this contentious volume are 233 illustrations by dozens of little-known artists united by a passion for social justice. These works can be seen in a traveling exhibition at the Columbus (Ohio) Museum of Art from May 16 to August 24, 2003.—Cathy Curtis

From Publishers Weekly
The conventional story of American visual art generally pegs postwar Abstract Expressionism, in the hands of Jackson Pollack, Willem de Kooning, etc., as the first truly mature manifestation of a national aesthetic, followed by Pop Art and minimalism as its glamorous and cerebral heirs. This polemical picture book seeks to overturn that history, finding in paintings of the pre-AbEx era a rich and undervalued tradition, and an antidote to a 20th-century art history that the author characterizes as fundamentally effete. Collecting images from provincial museums across the country, Dijkstra mixes well-known artists such as Jacob Lawrence and Georgia O'Keefe with consistently under-appreciated talents such as Albert Pinkham Ryder and Charles Burchfield, along with a canon of fascinating unknowns. Together, they flesh out an alternative history of much more humanistic dimensions than the hermetic and apolitical legacy of the postwar decades, with art that is decidedly more earthy and populist and socially engaged. Although Dijkstra pads the case with some sentimental choices-noble sharecroppers and grungy smelting factories and the like-his case stands as a convincing rebuff to the exhausted narratives of contemporary advanced art. Moreover, it resonates interestingly with the sources and practices of emerging artists in the post-conceptual era. This is a provocative, important book. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
During the 1920s and '30s and until the end of World War II, a distinctly American form of Expressionism evolved. Most of the artists in this movement, children of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe, African Americans, and other outsiders to American mainstream culture, grew up in the urban ghettoes of the East Coast or Chicago. Their art was sympathetic to the dispossessed and reflected a deep concern with the lives of working people. Providing a fascinating look at this art--and at the beginning of a new movement, Abstract Impressionism which followed it--cultural historian Bram Dijkstra offers new insights into the roots of painting in America today. Dijkstra examines the new emphasis these socially conscious artists brought to the pursuit of the American ideals of equality, dignity, and justice for all. Provocatively he suggests that Abstract Expressionism came to be used as part of a backlash, deliberately fostered by conservative political and corporate interests, against the socially conscious Expressionist paintings and the WPA projects supported by the Roosevelt administration. Profusely illustrated throughout with works of art seldom seen today, the book coincides with an important traveling exhibition of the art of this period.

About the Author
Bram Dijkstra is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at the University of California, San Diego. He has published numerous book on American cultural history. He lives in Del Mar, California.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"From the 1920s until the end of World War II, a distinctly American form of Expressionism evolved in the United States. This was an art distinct from Regionalism, the now better known style of the period. Unlike the Regionalists, Expressionist artists were often outsiders to what was then the American mainstream. Many were the children of turn-of-the-century immigrants from Eastern Europe (William Gropper, Ben Shahn, Harry Sternberg, Jack Levine, Philip Guston), Southern Europe (Louis Guglielmi, Theodore Hios, Rico Lebrun), or Asia (Yasuo Kuniyoshi); many were African-American (Jacob Lawrence, Hale Woodruff, Charles White). But whatever their background, all of these men and women brought a new spirit of idealism to American art." "During the Great Depression and up until the beginning of World War II, the American Expressionists received considerable support from the fine arts programs of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the historic government agency founded by the Roosevelt administration. After the war, however, a new - and apolitical - movement, Abstract Expressionism, quickly displaced the topical expressionism that had preceded it. In this book, author Bram Dijkstra argues that the new movement was deliberately fostered by conservative government and corporate interests as a way of suppressing the socially active idealism that had flourished during the Depression. In this new climate of opinion, the representational work of the Expressionists was ridiculed by powerful critics, savagely denigrated, and wrongly linked to Regionalism, Socialist Realism, and even the art of Hitler's Third Reich. Ultimately, it was dropped from serious discussions of American art." American Expressionism brings to light the work of a group of men and women whose art has for too long remained in obscurity. Dijkstra's analysis will give every reader a new perspective on the remarkable achievement of American artists of the 1920s and 30s, and it will change our understa

FROM THE CRITICS

The Los Angeles Times

Dijkstra ￯﾿ﾽ who has written such books as Georgia O'Keeffe and the Eros of Place and Cubism, Stieglitz and the Early Poetry of William Carlos Williams ￯﾿ﾽ gives us another look at some artists whose accomplishments have not been fully recognized or celebrated. Of their work reproduced in this book, I'd like to see more of Joseph Solman, Matthew Barnes and Clayton Price. But the volume (produced in collaboration with the Columbus Museum of Art) also shows us work by many artists who have been honored in the years since their critical heyday. They have not been erased from history, and the selection of their work is gorgeous. — Pete Hamill

The Washington Post

Cultural historian Dijkstra writes superbly well about the terrifying beauty of these disquieting works. — Michael Dirda

Publishers Weekly

The conventional story of American visual art generally pegs postwar Abstract Expressionism, in the hands of Jackson Pollack, Willem de Kooning, etc., as the first truly mature manifestation of a national aesthetic, followed by Pop Art and minimalism as its glamorous and cerebral heirs. This polemical picture book seeks to overturn that history, finding in paintings of the pre-AbEx era a rich and undervalued tradition, and an antidote to a 20th-century art history that the author characterizes as fundamentally effete. Collecting images from provincial museums across the country, Dijkstra mixes well-known artists such as Jacob Lawrence and Georgia O'Keefe with consistently under-appreciated talents such as Albert Pinkham Ryder and Charles Burchfield, along with a canon of fascinating unknowns. Together, they flesh out an alternative history of much more humanistic dimensions than the hermetic and apolitical legacy of the postwar decades, with art that is decidedly more earthy and populist and socially engaged. Although Dijkstra pads the case with some sentimental choices-noble sharecroppers and grungy smelting factories and the like-his case stands as a convincing rebuff to the exhausted narratives of contemporary advanced art. Moreover, it resonates interestingly with the sources and practices of emerging artists in the post-conceptual era. This is a provocative, important book. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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