American art to WW II

Here are many of the most iconic American images, American Gothic and Nighthawks for example. But also find here photographers that documented American poverty during the depression, the gritty cityscape, and the magic of looking up to a night sky through the canopy of a tree.

Jacobi seems to have been able to see more facets of Einstein than the editors of Life cared to share with their readership.

Lotte Jacobi, Albert Einstein

by Dr. Gretchen Gasterland-Gustafsson

mainbocher grid — Horst's Mainbocher Corset photograph journeyed across oceans and time to 50 later transform Vogue into a concept and a verb.

Horst P. Horst, Mainbocher Corset, Paris

by Dr. Gretchen Gasterland-Gustafsson

ben shahn grid — Ben Shahn's painting asks: Who belongs in the art world?

Ben Shahn, Contemporary American Sculpture

by Dr. Jeffrey Richmond-Moll and Dr. Beth Harris

Stone Mountain Grid — Perhaps the largest relief sculpture in the world, this Confederate memorial is an expression of 20th and 21st century racial politics.

Stone Mountain, Georgia

by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

How a statue representing well-functioning government ended up in a cemetery

Frederick MacMonnies, Civic Virtue

by Dr. Michele Bogart and Dr. Steven Zucker

awa tsireh grid — Pottery Makers is one of many that the artist Awa Tsireh (Cattail Bird, Spanish name Alfonso Roybal) created about Pueblo cultures

Awa Tsireh’s Pottery Makers

by Ryuichi Nakayama

Mopope grid — Stephen Mopope's sixteen murals displayed within the Anadarko, OK post office depict the life and traditions of the Kiowa people.

Stephen Mopope, U.S. Post Office Murals, Anadarko, ...

by Matthew K. Ward

Contemporary artist discusses Horace Pippin as a so-called "outsider" artist and the importance of his perspective into every-day American life

Josiah McElheny on Horace Pippin

by The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Horace Pippin, Mr. Prejudice

by Jessica T. Smith, Philadelphia Museum of Art and Dr. Steven Zucker

Camera Work Issue 14 - Left side of two-page spread "Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession" — If you walked into this art gallery you would likely have been quite surprised.

291—Little Galleries of the Photo Secession

by Dr. Stephanie Chadwick

Metcalf, Havana Harbor

by Dr. Katherine Bourguignon, Terra Foundation of American Art and Dr. Steven Zucker

Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Little Joe with Cow

by Dr. Jennifer Padgett, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and Dr. Steven Zucker

George Benjamin Luks, Street Scene (Hester Street)

by Margarita Karasoulas, Assistant Curator of American Art, Brooklyn Museum and Dr. Steven Zucker

Elsie Driggs, Blast Furnaces

by Dr. Jennifer Padgett, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and Dr. Steven Zucker

Velino Shije Herrera (Ma Pe Wi), Design, ...

by Dr. Adriana Greci Green and Dr. Beth Harris

The New York based ashcan artist George Bellows tackles the horrors of the First World War

Bellows, Return of the Useless
by Dr. Jennifer Padgett, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and Dr. Steven Zucker

Meet the two women behind this iconic 1936 photograph.

Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother
by Eve Schillo, LACMA and Dr. Steven Zucker

Cats, gossip, and laundry — a view of Los Angeles during the Great Depression.

Millard Sheets, Tenement Flats
by Dr. Virginia Mecklenburg, Smithsonian American Art Museum and Dr. Steven Zucker

An interpretation of the city's colossal skyscrapers

The City at night, Joseph Stella’s The ...
by Dr. Tricia Laughlin Bloom and Dr. Steven Zucker

When movies were new and lights transformed the darkened city streets.

John Sloan, Movies
by Dr. Lawrence W. Nichols, Toledo Museum of Art and Dr. Steven Zucker

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