This exhibition examines famous painters and photographers of the 1920s and ’30s with early works by Georgia O’Keeffe, photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand and Edward Weston, and cityscapes by Edward Hopper. It also displays pioneers of modern American art whose work is less well-known in the UK, particularly the so-called precisionist artists Charles Demuth and Charles Sheeler. The focus is upon artists who grappled with the experience of America between the wars with a cool, controlled detachment, eliminating people from their pictures altogether – either to reflect an ambivalence and anxiety about the modern world, or to express an optimistic response to the new architectural environment of skyscrapers and bridges. Find out more about ‘America’s Cool Modernism’ from the Ashmolean’s website.
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Richard Serra, man of steel (1938–2024)