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Exhibition
Modernism Made in New Mexico
Touring Exhibition 2015 - 2015
Organized by
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Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
Santa Fe/New Mexico
January 30, 2015 - April 30, 2015
In the early decades of the twentieth century, a group of radical, adventurous artists sought to create an entirely new style of painting. Rejecting the traditions of the past, many of these self-described “Modernists” took their inspiration from the dramatic landscape of New Mexico. Where an early generation of artists had portrayed the romantic lure of the American Southwest during the nineteenth-century using European Academic painting traditions to represent the environment and inhabitants of the region as exotic, Modern artists took a very different approach. Modernism Made in New Mexico, an exhibition organized by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, traces this journey through the work of fifteen pioneering artists who found inspiration in New Mexico’s stark landscape, distinct adobe architecture, and vibrant cultures. The artwork on view spans the first four decades of the twentieth century, from a scene of majestic beauty painted in 1902 by Thomas Moran to the abstract Modernist composition of Raymond Jonson, created in 1940.The exhibition investigates how the high desert landscape and the local cultures of New Mexico inspired a radical new direction in American Modernism during the first half of the twentieth century. It explores the unique creative efforts among some of America’s most important artists, leaders in the development of an unmistakably American style of Modernism, one made in New Mexico. Though far from influential art centers like New York City, the sense of place found in this region dramatically changed the look of American art.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, a group of radical, adventurous artists sought to create an entirely new style of painting. Rejecting the traditions of the past, many of these self-described “Modernists” took their inspiration from the dramatic landscape of New Mexico. Where an early generation of artists had portrayed the romantic lure of the American Southwest during the nineteenth-century using European Academic painting traditions to represent the environment and inhabitants of the region as exotic, Modern artists took a very different approach. Modernism Made in New Mexico, an exhibition organized by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, traces this journey through the work of fifteen pioneering artists who found inspiration in New Mexico’s stark landscape, distinct adobe architecture, and vibrant cultures. The artwork on view spans the first four decades of the twentieth century, from a scene of majestic beauty painted in 1902 by Thomas Moran to the abstract Modernist composition of Raymond Jonson, created in 1940.The exhibition investigates how the high desert landscape and the local cultures of New Mexico inspired a radical new direction in American Modernism during the first half of the twentieth century. It explores the unique creative efforts among some of America’s most important artists, leaders in the development of an unmistakably American style of Modernism, one made in New Mexico. Though far from influential art centers like New York City, the sense of place found in this region dramatically changed the look of American art.
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Courtesy of Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Photo: Tim Nighswander/IMAGING4ART
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Exhibition Catalogue