The Great Book of Currier & Ives' America

The Great American Pin-Up by Charles G. Martignette and Louis K. Meisel. Hardcover book, published in 2002 by Taschen. Printed in Italy, illustrated, 447 pages. Printed in English, G...

The Hermitage, Selected Treasures from a Great Museum. Softcover book, first edition, published in 1990. Printed in Japan, illustrated, 164 pages.

Currier and Ives, Printmakers to the American People by Harry T. Peters. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran and Co., Inc., 1943. First edition thus hardcover with no dust jacket. 192 pp. ...

American Modern presents a fresh look at The Museum of Modern Art’s holdings of American art made between 1915 and 1950, and considers the cultural preoccupations of a rapidly changing American society in the first half of the twentieth century. Organized thematically and featuring paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and sculpture, the publication brings together some of the Museum’s most celebrated masterworks, contextualizing them across mediums and amidst lesser-seen but revelatory works. The selection of works by artists such as Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Sheeler, Charles Burchfield and Stuart Davis includes urban and rural landscapes, scenes of industry, still-life compositions and portraiture. Although varying in style and specifics, they share certain underlying visual and emotional tendencies. Cityscapes and factories are shown eerily emptied of the crush of residents that flocked to them, becoming both a celebration of clean modern forms and technological advances, as in Sheeler’s paintings and photographs, and a reflection of anxiety about increasingly urban lifestyles and their consequences for the American individual, as in Hopper’s iconic “Night Windows.” Equally silent rural scenes are no less haunting, but perhaps reflect a nostalgia for seemingly simpler times, and a celebration of early American traditions and values. Featured still lifes are as diverse: Stuart Davis’ bright, angular compositions marry fractured form with logos and patterns taken from modern advertising...