The Magazine Antiques

October 27, 2009  |  The Modern Eye: Stieglitz, MoMA, and the Art of the Exhibition by Kristina Wilson is an engaging new book that examines the foundations of the display and perception of modern art in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. Wilson explores this topic and related themes—such as spirituality and morality—across four chapters offering in-depth historical and critical analysis of the major exhibitions of the era.  She begins with the exhibitions Alfred Stieglitz hosted at his galleries, particularly the Intimate Gallery in the late 1920s, and delves into his break with traditional modes of display. Next is a discussion of the constructed architectural settings—a fusion of Hollywood-set design, department-store display, and period room—of The Architect and the Industrial Art exhibition hosted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1929 and the critical response to it. The first exhibitions of American art at the Museum of Modern Art are presented next, followed by a chapter on the Machine-Age Exhibition sponsored by the literary magazine Little Review, and the Machine Art exhibition at MoMA. Throughout each chapter Wilson deftly intertwines important background and contextual information about important figures such as MoMA director Alfred Barr Jr. and painter Arthur Dove; ancillary exhibitions; and the broader visual culture of movies and department stores.

Wilson is a professor of art history at Clark University, and author of the pioneering decorative arts study Livable Modernism: Interior Decorating and Design During the Great Depression.  This new publication is a fitting complement to Wilson's previous work, and together they offer a broadening view of the consumption and visual of art and design in America in the years between the two world wars. Numerous color and black-and-white illustrations bring to life the artwork and exhibition galleries discussed in The Modern Eye making it an excellent visual resource of the period as well.

The Modern Eye: Stieglitz, MoMA, and the Art of the Exhibition is published Yale University Press, New Haven, 2009, hardcover, 248 pp., $50.00.  It can be purchased online directly from Yale at www.yalepress.edu.