28th Annual American Art Conference: Multiple Modernities

IAC explores the synchronicity of modern expressions and movements in American art. It can be argued that the “modern” in American Art, at least as we recognize it from our 21st-century vantage, had origins at the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876. There, responding to the decision by Organizers of the Philadelphia Exhibition to exclude works by women from the Art Gallery building, the Women’s Centennial Executive Committee created “their own pavilion, built with funds completely raised by women, with all exhibits created and operated by them,” as Stephanie Grauman Wolf writes. This was truly modern in a general sense, celebrating women’s achievements across multiple domains and serving as a powerful argument for women’s autonomy. It was also modern in a very specific way: at the Pavilion (as in the Art Gallery) painted ceramics and glass were exhibited alongside works on canvas, thus elevating what had heretofore been considered merely utilitarian to the realm of art. 

Conference participants will be guests of The American Art Fair’s invitation-only Gala Preview.

Additionally, on Thursday, May 9, attendees are invited to an exclusive preview of Heritage Auctions’ Spring American Art Sale. On Saturday, May 11, conference attendees will attend a private viewing and tour of the exhibition “American Artists in Paris, 1946 – 1962” at the newly reopened and renamed Grey Art Museum at NYU, led by curators Debra Bricker Balken and Lynn Gumpert, the Museum’s director.

Learn more on this website.

Caption above: Arthur Dove, Red Sun, 1935, Oil on canvas, 20 1/4 x 28 in. (unframed). The Phillips Collection, gift of Duncan Phillips, 1935.