20th-century art
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Twentieth-century art, a child of nineteenth-century art, is art from the twentieth century. It can be divided in modern art until 1970 and contemporary art after that date.
The first art movements of the 20th century are Fauvism in France and Die Brücke ("The Bridge") in Germany. Fauvism in Paris introduced heightened non-representational colour into figurative painting. Die Brücke strove for emotional Expressionism. Another German group was Der Blaue Reiter ("The Blue Rider"), led by Kandinsky in Munich, who associated the blue rider image with a spiritual non-figurative mystical art of the future. Kandinsky, Kupka, R. Delaunay and Picabia were pioneers of abstract (or non-representational) art. Cubism, generated by Picasso, Braque, Metzinger, Gleizes and others rejected the plastic norms of the Renaissance by introducing multiple perspectives into a two-dimensional image. Futurism incorporated the depiction of movement and machine age imagery. Dadaism, with its most notable exponents, Marcel Duchamp, who rejected conventional art styles altogether by exhibiting found objects, notably a urinal, and too Francis Picabia, with his Portraits Mécaniques.
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History
20th century art and what it became known as - Modern art, really began with Modernism in the late 19th century. Nineteenth-century movements of Post Impressionism and Art Nouveau led to the first twentieth-century art movements of Fauvism in France and Die Brücke ("The Bridge"} in Germany. Fauvism in Paris introduced heightened non-representational colour into figurative painting. Die Brücke strove for emotional Expressionism. Another German group was Der Blaue Reiter ("The Blue Rider"), led by Kandinsky in Munich, who associated the blue rider image with a spiritual non-figurative mystical art of the future. Kandinsky was a pioneer of abstract (or non-representational) art. Cubism, generated by Picasso rejected the plastic norms of the Renaissance by introducing multiple perspectives into a two-dimensional image. Dadaism, with its most notable exponent, Marcel Duchamp, rejected conventional art styles altogether by exhbiting found objects, notably a urinal. Futurism incorporated the depiction of movement and machine age imagery.
Parallel movements in Russia were Suprematism, where Kasimir Malevich also created non-representational work, notably a black canvas.
Dadaism evolved into Surrealism, where the theories of Freudian psychology led to the depiction of the dream and the unconscious in art in work by Salvador Dali. Kandinsky's introduction of non-representational art led to the 1950s American Abstract Expressionist school, including Jackson Pollock, who dripped paint onto the canvas, and Mark Rothko, who created large areas of flat colour. This detachment from the world of imagery was directly challenged in the 1960s by the Pop Art movement, notably Andy Warhol, where brash commercial imagery became a Fine Art staple. Warhol also minimised the role of the artist, often employing assistants to make his work and using mechanical means of production, such as silkscreen printing. This marked a change from Modernism to Post-Modernism.
Subsequent initiatives towards the end of the century were a paring down of the material of art through Minimalism and its total rejection with Conceptual art, where the idea, not the made object, was seen to be the art. The last decade of the century saw a fusion of earlier ideas in work by Jeff Koons, who made large sculptures from kitsch subjects, and in the UK, the Young British Artists, where Conceptual Art, Dada and Pop Art ideas led to Damien Hirst's exhibition of a shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine.
1990s
- 1999 in art - Death of Paul Cadmus, Patrick Heron, Leo Castelli, Nicholas Krushenick
- 1998 in art - Death of Dick Bellamy, Dick Higgins, John Krushenick, Chris Ofili wins the Turner Prize
- 1997 in art - Death of Willem de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, Sam Golden, Theodoros Stamos
- 1996 in art - Death of Dan Flavin, William Copley
- 1995 in art - Death of Harry Shoulberg, Nancy Graves
- 1994 in art - Death of Sam Francis, Robert Doisneau, Donald Judd, Clement Greenberg, Henry Geldzahler
- 1993 in art - Death of Richard Diebenkorn, Hannah Wilke, Rachel Whiteread wins the Turner Prize
- 1992 in art - Death of Francis Bacon, David Wojnarowicz, Joan Mitchell, Jeff Koons debuts Topiary Puppy
- 1991 in art - Death of Robert Motherwell, Berenice Abbott
- 1990 in art - Death of Keith Haring, Joan Brown
1980s
- 1989 in art - Death of Pierre Matisse, Robert Mapplethorpe, Salvador Dalí, Jay DeFeo
- 1988 in art - Death of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Isamu Noguchi, Louise Nevelson
- 1987 in art - Death of Andy Warhol, Rafael Soyer; Christian Lacroix opens his Paris fashion house
- 1986 in art - Death of Henry Moore, Georgia O'Keeffe, Jane Frank
- 1985 in art - Death of Marc Chagall, Charles Saatchi's collection opens to the public arousing interest in Neo-expressionism
- 1984 in art - Death of Ansel Adams, Lee Krasner
- 1983 in art - Death of Joan Miró
- 1982 in art - Death of Wifredo Lam, Ben Nicholson
- 1981 in art - Death of Isaac Soyer; Birth of Miru Kim
- 1980 in art - Death of Albert Kotin, Clyfford Still, Tony Smith, Graham Sutherland, Oskar Kokoschka; Pablo Picasso retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, May 22, 1980 through September 16, 1980. The largest and most complete Picasso exhibition ever held in the United States.
1970s
- 1979 in art - Death of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Peggy Guggenheim
- 1978 in art - Death of Norman Rockwell
- 1977 in art - Death of Charles Alston, Lee Miller, Naum Gabo
- 1976 in art - Death of Max Ernst, Alexander Calder, Paul Strand, Mark Tobey, Josef Albers, Man Ray, Imogen Cunningham
- 1975 in art - Death of Thomas Hart Benton
- 1974 in art - Death of Adolph Gottlieb
- 1973 in art - Death of Pablo Picasso, Edward Steichen, Stanton MacDonald-Wright, the first Whitney Biennial
- 1972 in art - Death of Joseph Cornell
- 1971 in art - Death of I. Rice Pereira
- 1970 in art - Birth of Jenny Saville, Death of Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Eva Hesse
1960s
- 1969 in art - Death of Otto Dix, Ben Shahn, Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, first Lyrical Abstraction exhibition at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum marking a significant return to expressivity in painting
- 1968 in art - Death of Marcel Duchamp Birth of John Trobaugh
- 1967 in art - Death of Edward Hopper, Rene Magritte, Ad Reinhardt
- 1966 in art - Death of Alberto Giacometti, Hans Hofmann, The second New York City Armory Show 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering sponsored by E.A.T. - Experiments in Art and Technology.
- 1965 in art - Death of Milton Avery, David Smith (sculptor), Le Corbusier, Birth of Damien Hirst
- 1964 in art - Death of Giorgio Morandi, Stuart Davis
- 1963 in art - Death of Georges Braque, Birth of Jon Coffelt, Marco Evaristti, Rachel Whiteread
- 1962 in art - Death of Morris Louis, Franz Kline, Yves Klein, Birth of John Currin, Gary Hume, October 31 the Sidney Janis Gallery mounts The New Realists the first Pop Art group exhibition in an uptown art gallery in New York City, in a 57th Street storefront near the gallery at 15 E. 57th Street
- 1961 in art - Death of Grandma Moses, Augustus John; Birth of Thomas Tulis
- 1960 in art - Death of David Park, Birth of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Makoto Fujimura, as public interest in Abstract expressionism wanes, Color field painting, Hard-edge painting, and Minimalism become increasingly popular
1950s
- 1959 in art - Birth of Caio Fonseca, Death of Frank Lloyd Wright, Sir Jacob Epstein
- 1958 in art - Frank Stella begins Black Pinstripe Paintings
- 1957 in art - Death of Diego Rivera, Jack Butler Yeats
- 1956 in art - Death of Jackson Pollock
- 1955 in art - Death of Fernand Léger, Nicolas de Staël, Bradley Walker Tomlin; Birth of Jeff Koons, Jasper Johns completes Flag, (American Flag Painting)
- 1954 in art - Death of Henri Matisse, André Derain, Frida Kahlo, Birth of David Wojnarowicz
- 1953 in art - Death of John Marin
- 1952 in art - Jackson Pollock paints Blue Poles, and Number Twelve (damaged by fire in the Governors Mansion, Albany, NY in 1961) an influential and large-scale, colorful stain painting that predicts both Color field painting and Lyrical Abstraction
- 1951 in art - Death of Wols, Birth of Jack Spencer, Willem de Kooning paints Woman I, the Ninth Street Show of 1951, NYC. A seminal event of Abstract Expressionism.
- 1950 in art - Jackson Pollock paints Autumn Rhythm [1]
1940s
- 1949 in art - Birth of Ross Bleckner, Alberto Giacometti completes Three Men Walking II
- 1948 in art - Birth of Eric Fischl, Death of Arshile Gorky, George Ault
- 1947 in art - Birth of Ronnie Landfield, Death of Pierre Bonnard, Peggy Guggenheim closes The Art of This Century Gallery
- 1946 in art - Birth of Robert Mapplethorpe, Kirk Varnedoe, Death of Arthur Dove
- 1945 in art - Birth of Sean Scully, Peter Reginato
- 1944 in art - Birth of Odd Nerdrum, Death of Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Edvard Munch, Francis Bacon completes Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion
- 1943 in art - Death of Chaim Soutine, Marsden Hartley, Piet Mondrian completes Broadway Boogie-Woogie
- 1942 in art - Birth of Dan Christensen, Peggy Guggenheim opens The Art of This Century Gallery
- 1941 in art - Birth of Bruce Nauman, Dale Chihuly
- 1940 in art - Birth of Mary Ellen Mark, Nancy Graves, Elizabeth Murray, Death of Paul Klee, Édouard Vuillard
1930s
- 1939 in art - Birth of Spider Martin
- 1938 in art - Birth of Joan Brown, Brice Marden, Eugene J. Martin, Death of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, William Glackens
- 1937 in art - Birth of David Hockney, Ronald Davis, Red Grooms, Robert Mangold, Larry Zox, Pablo Picasso paints Guernica; Death of Joseph-Maurice Ravel, French composer and pianist
- 1936 in art - Birth of Richard Estes, Eva Hesse, Frank Stella,
- 1935 in art - Birth of Jim Dine, Don McCullin, Death of Charles Demuth, Paul Signac
- 1934 in art - Birth of Patrick Ireland
- 1933 in art - Birth of Sam Gilliam, Yoko Ono, James Rosenquist, Dan Flavin
- 1932 in art - Birth of Howard Hodgkin, Paul Caponigro
- 1931 in art - Births of Frank Auerbach, Bridget Riley, Tom Wesselmann
- 1930 in art - Birth of Jasper Johns, Death of Jules Pascin
1920s
- 1929 in art - Birth of Jules Feiffer, Claes Oldenburg, Nicholas Krushenick, Diego Rivera marries Frida Kahlo, the Museum of Modern Art opens in New York City
- 1928 in art - Birth of Andy Warhol, Arman, Yves Klein, Helen Frankenthaler, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt
- 1927 in art - Birth of John Chamberlain, Wolf Kahn
- 1926 in art - Death of Mary Cassatt, Claude Monet
- 1925 in art - Death of George Bellows, Birth of Robert Rauschenberg, Joan Mitchell
- 1924 in art - Birth of Kenneth Noland, Andre Emmerich, Michael Goldberg, George Segal
- 1923 in art - Birth of Marc Riboud, Sam Francis, Roy Lichtenstein
- 1922 in art - Birth of Lucian Freud, Richard Diebenkorn
- 1921 in art - Piet Mondrian completes Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue
- 1920 in art - Birth of Wayne Thiebaud, Gene Davis, Patrick Heron, Helmut Newton,Elaine Hamilton-O'Neal, Death of Amedeo Modigliani
1910s
- 1919 in art - Death of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Ralph Blakelock, Walter Gropius founds the Bauhaus
- 1918 in art - Birth of Elaine de Kooning, Jane Frank; Death of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele
- 1917 in art - Birth of Jacob Lawrence, Andrew Wyeth; Death of Edgar Degas, Albert Pinkham Ryder
- 1916 in art - Birth of Louis le Brocquy, Death of Thomas Eakins; Dadaism started in Zürich
- 1915 in art - Birth of Robert Motherwell, Sam Golden
- 1914 in art - Birth of Nicolas de Staël, O. Winston Link
- 1913 in art - Birth of Wols, Birth of Robert Capa, Ad Reinhardt, The Armory Show opens in New York City. It displays works of artists who are to become some of the most influential painters of the early 20th century.
- 1912 in art - Birth of Morris Louis, Robert Doisneau, Jackson Pollock, Agnes Martin, Tony Smith
- 1911 in art
- 1910 in art - Birth of Franz Kline, Death of Henri Rousseau, Winslow Homer
1900s
- 1909 in art - Birth of Francis Bacon, Clement Greenberg, Henri Matisse completes The Dance, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque jointly collaborate in the invention of Analytic Cubism
- 1908 in art - Birth of Lee Krasner, Balthus, Henri Cartier-Bresson
- 1907 in art - Birth of Frida Kahlo, Leo Castelli, Charles Alston, Lee Miller; Pablo Picasso paints Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
- 1906 in art - Death of Paul Cézanne, Birth of Philip Johnson, David Smith
- 1905 in art - Birth of Ruth Bernhard, Barnett Newman
- 1904 in art - Birth of Arshile Gorky, Paul Cadmus, Clyfford Still, Willem de Kooning, Salvador Dalí
- 1903 in art - Birth of Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, Graham Sutherland, Joseph Cornell, Death of Paul Gauguin, Hans Gude, Camille Pissarro, James McNeill Whistler
- 1902 in art - Birth of Ansel Adams, I. Rice Pereira, Death of Albert Bierstadt, Death of James Tissot
- 1901 in art - Birth of Alberto Giacometti, Death of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
- 1900 in art - Birth of Yves Tanguy, Death of Frederic Edwin Church
See also
- faultlines in 20th century art, French art of the 20th century, institutionalisation of art, 20th century modern and contemporary painting
- Modernism
- List of modern artists
- Contemporary art
- Postmodern art
- Late Modernism
- 1950s art
- 1960s art
- 1970s art
See also
- History of Painting
- Western painting
- Modernism
- List of modern artists
- 20th century Western painting
- List of 20th century women artists
- Contemporary art
- Postmodern art
- Late Modernism
- Remodernism
- Classificatory disputes about art
- New materials in 20th-century art