AH 386 - 20th Century American Painting - Fall 2009                                 Prof. P. Hills

Tues/Thurs, 12:30 – 1:50, Room 314                                                             pathills@bu.edu

Office Hours:  Monday, 10-11; Tues, 11:00-12:30 & by appointment                    353-2521

Office:  CAS Rm 301B

                                                                            Syllabus

 

The course will survey 20th-century painting from Ashcan realism to Postmodernism of the 1980s and 1990s--including New York Dada, early abstraction based on machine and skyscraper forms, the abstract flowers of Georgia O'Keeffe, the Jazz pictures of the Harlem Renaissance, Americans in Paris, art and politics during the Depression years, Middle America regionalism, Post-World War II abstract expressionism, figurative art during the Cold War, the Beat poets and artists of the 1950s, Pop Art and minimalism in the 1960s, conceptual art and earth art, political and anti-war art in the Vietnam War era, the Black Arts movement of the 1970s, feminist art, identity politics and body art, art in public spaces, and censorship and the culture wars.  Related developments in photography, film, sculpture, installation and performance art will also be discussed.

 

The teaching goals of the instructor are to help students:  1) to understand the relevance of the historical, social and political context in which art developed in the United States, 2) to sharpen their skills of formal analysis of artworks, and 3) to develop critical understandings of writings on art and the artworld.   Lectures will be interactive with students encouraged to participate.

 

Students will focus on one aspect of the course in their papers.  A four-page book review/critique (selected from the AH 386 Bibliography) will form the basis of the ten-page research paper due at the end of the semester.  Conferences with instructor are encouraged.

 

Requirements

1.  Participation in class discussion, readings, individual review sessions with instructor

2.  Quiz: Fri, Sept. 29

3.  Four-page Book Review/Critique Due:  Tues, Oct. 20

4.  50 min Mid-Term:  Thurs, Oct 22

5.  Individual conference with instructor:  Week of Oct. 27

6.  Outline & brief bibliography for research paper due:  Tues, Nov 3

7.  Ten-page Research Paper Due:  Thurs, Nov 19 

8.  Optional:  Due date for rewrite of Research Paper:  Tues, Dec 8

9.  Field trips to be arranged

10. Final:  Sat, Dec. 19, 9–11 am [There will be no advance exams; adjust your travel plans.]

 

Texts: *  Hills, Patricia.  Modern Art in the USA:  Issues and Controversies of the 20th Century                                     (Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Prentice Hall, 2001).

            *  Doss, Erika.  Twentieth-Century American Art (New York:  Oxford, 2002).

 

Helpful Sources for Images: (On Reserve at Mugar; highly recommended)

* Haskell, Barbara.  The American Century:  Art and Culture, 1900-1950.  Exh. Cat. New York:  Whitney Museum of American Art in Association with W. W. Norton, 1999.

* Phillips, Lisa.  The American Century:  Art and Culture, 1950-2000.  Exh. Cat. NY, 1999.

 

Note:  Required Readings:  In Hills, read the intros to chapters and sections and numbered assignments before coming to class.  In Doss, read more for background and approaches.  

Optional readings with an asterisk (*) on Reserve at Mugar, are especially helpful to those who have missed class. 

 

A WEB page is available for the images discussed in class.

 

Make-up Classes will be scheduled for those students missing class because of religious holidays; please notify instructor in advance. 

 

Deadlines should be strictly observed.  Grades will be lowered for late submissions of assignments.

 

1)  Thurs, Sept 3         Introduction to Art and Issues

                                    Analysis of the artwork (formalism)

                                    Social context (the artwork as an indicator of social and cultural history)

                                                            - intentions of the artist (biographical)

                                                            - patronage and promotion

                                                            - artworld reception

                                    Interpretation today

                                    Review of images from the course; early Edison short films

                                    Reading:  Hills "Preface"

 

2)  Tues, Sept 8          1900-20:  The Century Opens - The Progressive Era and early 20th-Century Photographers and Realist Painters:  Hine, Riis, Henri, Luks, Glackens, Bellows, and SloanÕs art and politics

                                    Reading:  Hills, #1, 2, 3, 16; Doss, pp. 9-52

                                    * Optional Reading:  E. Milroy, Painters of the New Century:  The Eight and American Art.  exh. cat. Milwaukee Art Museum, 1991.

                                    *Optional Reading:  R. Zurier, Art for The Masses:  A Radical Magazine and Its Graphics, 1911-1917.  Philadelphia, 1988.

 

3)  Thurs, Sept 10       1900-20: Modernism, Photography, Stieglitz Gallery, the Armory Show

                                    Reading:  Hills #4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19; Doss, pp. 53-72

                                    *Optional:  W. I. Homer, Alfred Stieglitz and the American Avant-Garde, NY, 1977

                                    *Optional: M. Brown, The Story of the Armory Show.  NY, 1988.

 

4) Tues, Sept 15         Stieglitz artists continued:  Weber, Marin, Dove, OÕKeeffe. 1917 Independents Show, 1917, and New York Dada

                                    Reading:  Hills # 11, 12, 13, 20, 21, 22                                                          

                                    *Optional:  F. M. Naumann, New York Dada, 1915-23, NY, 1994 
                                               

5)  Thurs, Sept 17      1920s:  Film:  Manhatta; The Machine and the City:  Stella, Schamberg, Sheeler, Strand, Lozowick, Demuth, O'Keeffe

                                    Influence of Package Design—Davis and Murphy

                                    Reading:  Hills #23, 24, 25, 26; Doss, pp. 75-95

                                    *Optional Reading:  R. G. Wilson, D. Pilgrim, & D.  Tashjian, The Machine Age in America, 1918-1941.  Exh. cat. Brooklyn Museum, 1978.

 

6) Tues, Sept 22         Cultural Nationalism, the "Usable Past," Cultural Primitivism and the Natural:  Dove, OÕKeeffe, Kuniyoshi, Hartley

                                    Reading: Hills # 27, 28, 29, 30, 33 and 34

                                    * Optional:  W. Corn, The Great American Thing:  Modern Art National Identity, 1919-1935.  (Berkeley, CA, 2000)

 

7) Thurs, Sept 24        Harlem, the ÒNew NegroÓ and Jazz Abroad

                                    Reiss, Covarrubias, Douglas, Van der Zee, Savage, Motley, Van Vechten

                                    Reading:  Hills # 31, 32, 35, 36, 37, 39

                                    * Optional Reading:  S. Lemke,  Primitivist Modernism:  Black Culture and the Origins of Transatlantic Modernism.  NY, 1998.. 

 

8) Tues, Sept 29         Part I:  25 min Quiz on 1900-1930

                                    Part II:  Background for 1930s & Mexican Muralists

                                    Reading:  Hills #40, 41, 42, 43; 50, 51, 52; Doss, pp. 97-117

                                    *Optional Reading:  P. Hills, Social Concern and Urban Realism:  American Painting of the 1930s.  Exh. cat. Boston University Art Gallery, 1983.

                                    *Optional Reading:  L. P. Hurlburt, The Mexican Muralists in the United States.  Albuquerque, NM, 1989..

                       

9) Thurs, Oct 1           1930s:  Photo League Films and Art and Politics:  Evergood, Shahn, Soyer, Neel, Davis

                                    Reading:  Hills #44, 45, 46, 47

                                    *Optional:  D. Shapiro, Social Realism:  Art as a Weapon.  NY, 1973. 
                                           

10) Tues, Oct 6           Government Projects:  FAP, FAS, Treasury Section; FSA, Parks, De Carava

                                    Reading:  Hills #53, 54, 55, 56

                                   

11) Thurs, Oct 8         Part I:  Regionalists (Benton, Curry, Wood, Hogue) and Cultural Nationalism

                                    Reading:  Hills # 57, 58

                                    *WEB Reading:  W. Corn, "The Birth of a National Icon:  Grant Wood's American Gothic," in M. Doezema and E. Milroy, eds.  Reading American Art.  New Haven, 1998.

 

       Tues, Oct 13        Monday Classes

 

12) Thurs, Oct 15       1930s and 1940s:  Black Artists:  Crite, Johnson, Jones, Lawrence

                                    Reading:  Hills # 54, 59, 60, 74

                                    WEB Reading:  P. Hills, "Painting Harlem Modern: The Art of Jacob Lawrence." Univ of California Press 2009 pp. 74-95

                                   

13) Tues, Oct 20         1930s:  Film:  Pare Lorenz, The River  [book review due]

                                    WEB Reading:  William Alexander, Film on the Left:  American Documentary Film from 1931 to 1942, pp. 137-44 

 

14) Thurs, Oct 22       50 Min Midterm through 1930s

                                    1940s:  World War II and the Cold War, New Themes, Freedom, and the Figurative Tradition.  Artists:  Guston, Shahn, Bourke-White, Evergood, Koerner, Greene, Wyeth, Lebron

                                    Reading:  Hills # 73, 76, 77,

                                    WEB Reading:  P. Hills, "Painting, 1941-1980," in P. Hills and R. K. Tarbell, The Figurative Tradition and the Whitney Museum of American Art  (Exh. cat., Museum of American Art, 1980), pp. 109-121

 

15) Tues, Oct 27         Film:  Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) and Surrealism

                                    WEB reading:  "Cecile Starr, "The Mother of the American Avant-Garde Film,"   New York Times (May 2, 1976), p. 13, 22.

 

16) Thurs, Oct 29       1940s and 1950s:  Gorky, Pollock, De Kooning, Gottlieb, Rothko

                                    Reading: Hills # 65, 63, 69; Doss, p. 119-137

                                    *Optional:  D. Ashton, The New York School:  A Cultural Reckoning, NY, 1972/1984  

 

17) Tues, Nov. 3         1940s and 1950s:  More Abstract Expressionism and Cold War Culture:  Critics    Greenberg, Rosenberg, Schapiro, Motherwell, Barr, Dondero

                                    Reading:  Hills # 61, 62, 64; 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72; 79, 80, 81

                                    WEB Reading:  Jane de Hart Mathews, "Art and Politics in Cold War America," in American Historical Review 81 (October 1976): 762-787.  

                                    *Optional Reading:  S. Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art:  Abstract Expressionism, Freedom, and the Cold War. NY, 1983

                                     *Optional Reading:  Irving Sandler, The Triumph of American Painting:  A History of Abstract Expressionism.  New York:  Harper and Row, 1970

 

18) Thurs, Nov 5        Film:  Pull My Daisy  (29 min) Robert Frank, Jack Kerouac, and Al Leslie; and photographs by Robert Frank  [Note:  Instructor is out of town]

                                    Reading:  # 82;

                                    WEB Reading; FrankÕs Guggenheim application; Handout from New Yorker Films

                                   

19) Tues, Nov 10        New Directions:  Rauschenberg and Johns; Warhol, Lichtenstein

                                    Reading:  Hills # 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92; Doss, pp. 139-159

                                    *Optional Reading:  Christin Mamiya, Pop Art as Consumer Culture: American Super Market. Austin:  University of Texas Press, 1992. 

 

20) Thurs, Nov 12      Performance, Fluxus, Happenings, Assemblage, and Oldenburg, Ono, Schneemann

                                    Reading:  Hills #83, 84, 85, 86

                                    Films:  Yoko Ono, Cut Piece, 1964; Carolee Schneemann, Meat Joy, 1964

                                    *Optional:  B. Haskell, Blam!  The Explosion of Pop, Minimalism, and Performance, 1958-1964.  Exh. cat. NY: Whitney Museum, 1984

 

21) Tues, Nov 17        1960s:  Minimal Art:  Frankenthaler, Louis, Noland, Stella, Kelly, Judd, Smith, Andre, Morris, Martin

                                    Reading:  Hills # 93, 94, 95, 96, 97

                                    *Optional Reading:  G. Battcock, ed.  Minimal Art:  A Critical Anthology.  NY, 1968

 

22)  Thurs, Nov 19     1968-1980:  Conceptual Art and Earth Art:  Andre, LeWitt, Hesse, Smithson, Holt, Haacke, Christo

                                    Reading:  Hills # 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103

                                    Video:  Christo's Running Fence                               

                                    *Optional:  Queens Museum of Art, New York.  Global Conceptualism:  Points of Origin, 1950s-1980s.  Exh. cat. NY,  1999.

 

       Thurs, Nov 26     THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY

 

23) Tues, Nov 24        1968-80:  Realism, Figuration and NeoExpressionism:  Pearlstein, Leslie, Neel, Welliver; Flack, Estes, Close, Bechtle;  Ramos, Colescott

                                    Reading:  Hills #104, 105, 106, 107, 108

                                                                                   

24) Tues, Dec 1          1968-80:  Protest:  Black Arts Movement and Anti-War Art: 

                                    Lawrence, Bearden, Catlett, White; Saar, Hammons, Andrews, Ringgold, Edwards

                                    Reading:  Hills # 115, 116, 117, 118; Doss, pp. 193-201

                                    *Optional:  Patton, S. F. African-American Art.  NY, 1998.

 

25) Thurs, Dec 3         1968-85:  Women Artists & the Women's Movement: Kahlo, Sleigh, Neel, Schapiro, Chicago, Semmel, Stevens, Damon, Mendieta, Guerrilla Girls

                                    Reading:  Hills # 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 158

                                    *Optional:  N. Broude and M.D. Garrard. eds. The Power of  Feminist Art:  The American Movement of the 1970s, History and Impact.  NY, 1994.

 

26) Tues, Dec 8          1980/90s: Postmodernism

                                    Part I:   New Painting: Guston, Golub, Tansey, Schnabel, Salle, Rothenberg, Murray, Haring, Basquiat, Bourgeois

                                    Reading:  Hills # 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132

                                    Part II:  Word-Based, Photo-Based, Theory-Based Art:  Baldassari, Kosuth, Nauman, Haacke, Heap of Birds, Holzer, Guerrilla Girls, Kruger, Simpson, Sherman, Longo, Weems

                                    Reading:  Hills # 133, 134, 135, 137; Doss, pp. 203-248

                                    *Optional Reading:  Brian Wallis, ed., Art after Modernism:  Rethinking Representation.  Boston:  Godine, 1984.

 

27) Thurs, Dec 10       LAST CLASS

                                    Part I:  Art in Public Spaces:  Posters, Murals, Sculpture, Monuments --Congresso de Artistas Chicanos en Aztlan, Baca, Kozloff, Serra, Lin, Sisco/Hock/Avalos, Act-Up, Lacy, Shepard Fairey

                                    Reading:  Gail Levin review of Fairey for caa.reviews

                                    Reading:  Hills # 145, 154, 155, 156, 157, 159, 160

                                    Part II:  Identity Politics and Body Art:  Wilke, Serrano, Hammons, Pindell, Simpson, Piper, Wilson, Charles, G—mez-Pe–a, Tseng, Hung Liu, Walker, Harris; Smith, Luna

                                    Reading:  Hills # 136, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144

                                    Video:  G—mez-Pe–a

                                    *Optional Reading:  Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, et. al.,  The Decade Show:  Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s.  New York:  1990.

                                    *Optional Reading:  Erika Doss, Spirit Poles and Flying Pigs:  Public Art and Cultural Democracy in American Communities.  Washington, D.C.:  Smithsonian Institution Press,1995.

 

Dec 19            Sat, Dec. 19,              FINAL 9 – 11 am       

 

Other useful information:

 

Grading:          Quiz:                           10 %                 

                        Mid-Term:                  15 %

                        Book review/critique: 10 %

                        Outline/Bibliography    5 %               

                        Term Paper:                30 %

                        Final:                           25 %

                        Participation:              5 %

 

Required reading:  the University's statement on plagiarism.  If you feel you have writing problems, see Professor Hills.

 

The AH386 course WEB page with images may be periodically updated.  You can access it with your BU email password, or review the WEB site in the Visual Resources Center, Room CAS 306.

 

E-MAIL:  Periodically Professor Hills will email updates about changes to the syllabus, lectures, papers, exams, field trips, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

9/1/2009