The American Century: Art & Culture, 1900-1950

A marvelous visual tour of an America growing in stature and confidence in the art world as it grows politically and economically into a superpower, this exhibition catalogue accompanies the first half of a survey of 20th-century American art and culture at the Whitney Museum. The widely diverse work covered--ranging from dance and commercial art to the creations of an avant-garde in dialogue with European Modernist factions--is presented in more than 700 well-chosen illustrations. Although the book designers have done a wonderful job grouping the reproductions--the pages are often stunning--the layout of the text is disorienting, as sidebars (50 short essays written by 22 contributors) often interrupt Haskell's main text. Still, particularly in Haskell's coverage of painting, sculpture and photography, the writers have supplied thorough political, historical and cultural contexts. Haskell shows that regionalist painter and printmaker Thomas Hart Benton found fame as a populist and nationalist, and that his reputation suffered when, faced with WWII, the U.S. public turned internationalist. Haskell also traces the impact of economic conditions on photography's subject matter. During the optimistic Jazz Age, when ""an equation of America with the machine and technology"" held sway, beautiful, idealizing pictures of machinery were in vogue. With the depression came a loss of faith in technology, and documentary photography capturing the plight of the rural poor became popular. While one cannot do justice to The Great Gatsby in a single sentence, as attempted here, this survey, given its vast scope and ambitious framing must be commended for its effective presentation of the big picture. (May) FYI: The exhibition opened this month. The second half, covering 1951-2000, opens in September and that catalogue, by Lisa Phillips, will follow in October.