New Book by HAA Alumna Caroline Riley Published by University of California Press
HAA alumna Caroline Riley’s new book MoMA Goes to Paris in 1938: Building and Politicizing American Art has been published by the University of California Press. The book is the first to examine the Museum of Modern Art’s first international exhibition, Three Centuries of American Art. With over 750 artworks on view in Paris, ranging from seventeenth-century colonial portraits to Mickey Mouse, and spanning architecture, film, folk art, painting, prints, and sculpture, it was the most comprehensive display of American art to date in Europe. It is an important contributor to the internationalization of American art, and represents the first collaboration between MoMA and the US Department of State to deploy art as diplomatic agents. MoMA Goes to Paris in 1938 explores how the exhibition expressed a vision of American art and culture that was not only an art historical endeavor but also a formulation of national identity, at a time when the concept of artworks as “masterpieces” was very much up for debate.
For more on the book, visit the publisher’s website here.