Boom: art & design in the 1940s

Uittreksel

"'Boom: Art and Design in the 1940s' looks at the complex shifts in technology and the arts, including music, film, and fashion, that surged in a tumultuous decade. Despite restrictions and hardships, the visual arts flourished, with some artists addressing political concerns in their work and others moving into abstraction. War disrupted the fashion industry in Paris, allowing New York to become a competitive center. Furniture design made creative use of technological advances. The movement of artists during the war years and afterward catalyzed the exchange of ideas and created more diverse artistic communities. Essays by leading figures in their respective fields show how wartime restrictions impacted world economies and the innovative solutions found by creative communities, examine Hollywood of the 1940s and its ability to unite international audiences, explore the ways clothing and textiles were shaped by the rapid changes of the era, and discuss how musicians played a vital role at this moment in history and helped shape the sounds of today. Interviews with contemporary figures, such as jazz artist Christian McBride and filmmaker Ken Burns, reflect on the impact of the 1940s on their respective fields. Including paintings by Lee Krasner, Horace Pippin, and Jackson Pollock, photographs by Margaret Bourke-White and Weegee, furniture by George Nakashima, jewelry by Alexander Calder, poetry by Anna Akhmatova, and apparel by Elsa Schiaparelli, the book covers the transformational responses to a volatile time across the spectrum of artistic practice."-- Provided by publisher.

Inhoud

Director's statement / Sasha Suda -- A Look at the 1940s / Jessica Todd Smith -- The war / a conversation with Ken Burns -- The poems of Anna Akhmatova / Isabella Szyfer -- Cultural renegades / a conversation with Christian McBride -- Queer connectivity / Lily F. Scott -- Fashion during wartime / Alexandra Palmer -- Hollywood in the 1940s / Steven Rea -- The economics of war / Frederic Murphy -- Fragments of lost histories / a conversation with Edmund de Waal -- Witness to war : Margaret Bourke-White on the Eastern Front / Amanda N. Bock -- "Needles and guns" : Elsa Schiaparelli and America / Dilys Blum -- Unseeable things : war, technology, photography / Amanda N. Bock -- Art in the home : painting by the yard / Dilys Blum -- Make it do : American modernist jewelry / Elisabeth Agro -- From war to peace : Horace Pippin on the home front / Jessica Todd Smith -- George Nakashima : synthesis and identity / Elisabeth Agro -- Genesis : Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner / Jessica Todd Smith.