In this volume, William B. Scott and Peter M. Rutkoff explore how the varied features of the urban experience in New York inspired the work of artists such as Isadora Duncan, Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, Eugene O'Neill, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, John Cage, Arthur Miller and James Baldwin, who together shaped 20th-century American culture. In painting, sculpture, photography, film, music, dance, theatre and architecture, New York artists redefined what it meant to be "modern". Unlike Paris, London and Berlin, New York's complexity made it impossible for any single school, academy or patron to enforce a dominant style or aesthetic. By the 1950s, New York Modern had matured into an artistic culture that celebrated diversity and controversy. Neither a style nor a school, New York Modern was an artistic dialogue - part engagement, part resistance, part celebration -that invited artists from a variety of backgrounds and with divergent concerns to voice their particular understandings of urban life and its relationship to modern art. Their independence and vitality established New York City as America's cultural centre in the 20th century.
About the Author :
William B. Scott and Peter M. Rutkoff are NEH Distinguished Professors of History at Kenyon College. Together, they are also the authors of 'New School: A History of The New School for Social Research, 1917-1970'. In addition, Rutkoff is the author of 'Revanche and Revision: The Origins of the Radical Right in France, 1880-1900' and Scott the author of 'In Pursuit of Happiness: American Conceptions of Property'.
Review :
"A demanding, spirited study of New York's engagement with Modernism... All students of New York City's artistic achievements will have to start with this book." -- Joel Schwartz, New York History
"In their exceptionally well-researched study, William Scott and Peter Rutkoff explore the centrality of New York City in the development of a vibrant, modern American culture... Their's is a rich and satisfying chronicle of the seemingly impossible, a thorough account of New York cultural life between 1876 and 1976... Scott and Rutkoff capture the vitality of the city as well as the individuals and institutions that made possible a modern, democratic American culture by focusing on the multiple roles that New York City played in the lives of the artists and institutions they investigate." -- A. Joan Saab, H-Urban, H-Net Reviews
"New York Modern mirrors the bewildering welter of its subject -- zigzagging through time to cover the evolution of different neighborhoods... expand[ing] our understanding of the city as the primary muse, site, and subject of 20th-century creative activity. The authors make this argument convincingly, through an accretion of innumerable details." -- Leslie Camhi, VLS
"Scott and Rutkoff explore the energy and vitality of the city from Greenwich Village to Harlem as a supportive (and destructive) environment for the arts. Like a nonfiction Ragtime, the book presents a cast of characters that is remarkable, from Robert Henri and his school of art at the beginning of the century through Steiglitz and O'Keefe to the happenings of Cunningham and Cage in the 1960s. While solidly based in scholarship, the lively, well-organized prose provides enough colorful detail to keep the pages turning." -- Library Journal (starred review)
"Scott and Rutkoff... distill an enormous range of scholarly work... The authors' clear vision of New York as the center of a plurality of modern arts, particularly after WWII, is bolstered by their minute attention to the social structures and political ideals that undergirded the polis and supported the artistic community. They are particularly astute in their scathing indictment of 1950 and '60s urban renewal, and in their documentation of Harlem's central role in all the arts." -- Publishers Weekly
"This history is as lively as its subject, clarifying the genealogy of the successive rebellions that marked the unfolding of modernism. It pays particular attention to the contributions of African Americans, helping us see, for example, the link between bebop and Abstract Expressionism." -- New Yorker
"This is a wonderful survey of the artistic life of a great and complex city. It is like a panorama, a sweeping history of a century of artistic production, of cultural pretension and achievement." -- Serge Guilbaut, Journal of American History
