Americans in Paris (1921-1931): Man Ray, Gerald Murphy, Stuart Davis, Alexander Calder

Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism

Americans in Paris (1921-1931): Man Ray, Gerald Murphy, Stuart Davis, Alexander Calder Details

Published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name organized by The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. Essays are organized around the theme of Paris, seen through the eyes first of the four young American artists, then the Parisian critics and journalists who commented on their efforts, and finally a contemporary American writer reflecting on the importance of Paris for the 20th-century imagination. The plates unfold a decade of work in an arrangement that shows how the art and aesthetics of the four artists embraced new aspects of time, space, and movement. 10.5x12.5" Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Reviews

For anyone interested in graphic arts during the heady days between the World Wars, this is a must-have book. Turner follows the development of four Americans who came to Paris during this time and returned to the US with renewed enthusiasm for their art. The book is overflowing with glossy pictures of the photography of Man Ray, who brought Dadism to a reluctant, then converted New York. Gerald Murphy who honed his minimalist, post cubist cityscapes here, and Stuart Davis, who produced some of his best tightly constructed, surrealist cubism-influenced paintings. Alexander Calder developed the whole new medium of bent and twisted wire as art and the never imagined mobile. Included with all this is Guy Davenport's trenchant essay explicating this art and of Paris as the eternal attraction for artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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