From the chaos of the First World War to the ravages of the Second, from the Great Depression to the rise of consumer culture, artists we call "modern" faced the challenge of responding imaginatively to utterly new circumstances of life. Original thought, startling artistic techniques, and new attitudes to experimentation were required to produce exceptional and timely work. 'Make It Modern' guides the reader through the art of the modern world. Works...

Paula Modersohn-Becker is today hailed as one of the great pioneers of modernism. When she died in 1907 at the age of just 31, she had completed more than 700 paintings and 1,000 drawings and prints. Despite selling only a few paintings during her lifetime, her distinct style, daring subject matter and perseverance in overcoming barriers to women left a significant artistic mark on the brief epoch between the old and the new, and paved the way for...

"An exploration of the revolutionary birth of Modern art in the tumultuous decade brought to a shattering close by WWI"--

Historian Gay explores the modernist rebellion that, beginning in the 1840s, transformed art, literature, music, and film with its assault on traditional forms. Beginning his epic study with Baudelaire, whose lurid poetry scandalized French stalwarts, Gay traces the revolutionary path of modernism from its Parisian origins to its emergence as the dominant cultural movement in world capitals such as Berlin and New York. This book presents a pageant...

The book covers the five stages of the artist's life and work - Russia : the early years 1887-1910; the Paris years 1910-1914; war and revolution in Russia 1914-1923; France and America 1923-1948; and the late work 1948-1985. It also includes a chronology of Chagall's life.

Over the course of his distinguished career, Robert Hughes wrote with brutal honesty about art, architecture, culture, religion-and himself. The Spectacle of Skill brings together some of his most unforgettable pieces, culled from nine of his most widely read and important books, alongside never-before-published pages from his unfinished second volume of memoirs. Showcasing Hughes's enormous range, this indispensable anthology offers a uniquely cohesive...

Delightful landscapes, idyllic genre scenes, light-flooded interiors, and atmospheric portraits: this richly illustrated book introduces the most important stylistic directions, artists, and works of Nordic painting. Concentrating on the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it centers on Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland, but also considers the equally interesting Nordic regions of the Faroes, Greenland, and the...

"Katherine Hoffman presents a comprehensive and provocative study of the life and work of the photographer, Alfred Stieglitz, focusing on the period from 1915 to his death in 1946, with some introductory material related to his early years. His work as photographer, editor, writer, and gallery director are explored in relationship to his personal biography and cultural milieu, presenting the complex tapestry that was Stieglitz's life and work.This...