Table of Contents

Contents: List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Prologue: Before the Modern: The New York Renaissance 1. Times Square: Urban Realism for a New New York 2. Paris and New York: From Cubism to Dada 3. Bohemian Ecstasy: Modern Art and Culture 4. New York Modern: Art in the Jazz Age 5. Rhapsody in Black: New York Modern in Harlem 6. Modernism versus New York Modern: MoMA and the Whitney 7. True Believers on Union Square: Politics and Art in the 1930s 8. Behind the American Scene: Music, Dance, and the Second Harlem Renaissance 9. New York Blues: The Bebop Revolution 10. Homage to the Spanish Republic: Abstract Expressionism and the New York Avant-Garde 11. Life without Father: Postwar New York Drama 12. Renovating the Modern: Monuments and Insurgents Notes Index

Promotional Information

It is surprising that no one has attempted previously what the authors accomplish in this book. New York Modern provides a history of manifestations of 'the modern' in the visual arts, music, dance, architecture, and drama in New York. The authors' comprehensive, engaging, and informative account connects Greenwich Village and Harlem with one another and with many points in between and beyond. There can be no doubt that New York has played a far more important role than any other American city in defining the meaning of modern in the arts, and over the last five decades has played a larger role than any other city in the world. This is an important work that offers unique and valuable insights, and a wealth of information, to those interested in art, concepts of the modern, New York City, and twentieth-century cultural and intellectual history. -- George H. Roeder, Jr., School of the Art Institute of Chicago

About the Author

William B. Scott and Peter M. Rutkoff teach history and American studies at Kenyon College, where they held the NEH Chair as Distinguished Teaching Professors from 1997 to 2000. Together, they are also the authors of New School: A History of the New School for Social Research, 1917-1970. In addition, Rutkoff is the author of Revanche and Revision: The Origins of the Radical Right in France, 1880-1900 and Scott the author of In Pursuit of Happiness: American Conceptions of Property.

Reviews

This history is as lively as its subject, clarifying the genealogy of the successive rebellions that marked the unfolding of modernism. It pays particular attention to the contributions of African Americans, helping us see, for example, the link between bebop and Abstract Expressionism. New Yorker New York Modern mirrors the bewildering welter of its subject-zigzagging through time to cover the evolution of different neighborhoods... expand[ing] our understanding of the city as the primary muse, site, and subject of 20th-century creative activity. The authors make this argument convincingly, through an accretion of innumerable details. -- Leslie Camhi VLS This is a wonderful survey of the artistic life of a great and complex city. It is like a panorama, a sweeping history of a century of artistic production, of cultural pretension and achievement. -- Serge Guilbaut Journal of American History Scott and Rutkoff explore the energy and vitality of the city from Greenwich Village to Harlem as a supportive (and destructive) environment for the arts. Like a nonfiction Ragtime, the book presents a cast of characters that is remarkable, from Robert Henri and his school of art at the beginning of the century through Steiglitz and O'Keefe to the happenings of Cunningham and Cage in the 1960s. While solidly based in scholarship, the lively, well-organized prose provides enough colorful detail to keep the pages turning. Library Journal (starred review) Scott and Rutkoff... distill an enormous range of scholarly work... The authors' clear vision of New York as the center of a plurality of modern arts, particularly after WWII, is bolstered by their minute attention to the social structures and political ideals that undergirded the polis and supported the artistic community. They are particularly astute in their scathing indictment of 1950 and '60s urban renewal, and in their documentation of Harlem's central role in all the arts. Publishers Weekly A demanding, spirited study of New York's engagement with Modernism... All students of New York City's artistic achievements will have to start with this book. -- Joel Schwartz New York History In their exceptionally well-researched study, William Scott and Peter Rutkoff explore the centrality of New York City in the development of a vibrant, modern American culture... Their's is a rich and satisfying chronicle of the seemingly impossible, a thorough account of New York cultural life between 1876 and 1976... Scott and Rutkoff capture the vitality of the city as well as the individuals and institutions that made possible a modern, democratic American culture by focusing on the multiple roles that New York City played in the lives of the artists and institutions they investigate. -- A. Joan Saab H-Urban, H-Net Reviews

This history is as lively as its subject, clarifying the genealogy of the successive rebellions that marked the unfolding of modernism. It pays particular attention to the contributions of African Americans, helping us see, for example, the link between bebop and Abstract Expressionism. New Yorker New York Modern mirrors the bewildering welter of its subject-zigzagging through time to cover the evolution of different neighborhoods... expand[ing] our understanding of the city as the primary muse, site, and subject of 20th-century creative activity. The authors make this argument convincingly, through an accretion of innumerable details. -- Leslie Camhi VLS This is a wonderful survey of the artistic life of a great and complex city. It is like a panorama, a sweeping history of a century of artistic production, of cultural pretension and achievement. -- Serge Guilbaut Journal of American History Scott and Rutkoff explore the energy and vitality of the city from Greenwich Village to Harlem as a supportive (and destructive) environment for the arts. Like a nonfiction Ragtime, the book presents a cast of characters that is remarkable, from Robert Henri and his school of art at the beginning of the century through Steiglitz and O'Keefe to the happenings of Cunningham and Cage in the 1960s. While solidly based in scholarship, the lively, well-organized prose provides enough colorful detail to keep the pages turning. Library Journal (starred review) Scott and Rutkoff... distill an enormous range of scholarly work... The authors' clear vision of New York as the center of a plurality of modern arts, particularly after WWII, is bolstered by their minute attention to the social structures and political ideals that undergirded the polis and supported the artistic community. They are particularly astute in their scathing indictment of 1950 and '60s urban renewal, and in their documentation of Harlem's central role in all the arts. Publishers Weekly A demanding, spirited study of New York's engagement with Modernism... All students of New York City's artistic achievements will have to start with this book. -- Joel Schwartz New York History In their exceptionally well-researched study, William Scott and Peter Rutkoff explore the centrality of New York City in the development of a vibrant, modern American culture... Their's is a rich and satisfying chronicle of the seemingly impossible, a thorough account of New York cultural life between 1876 and 1976... Scott and Rutkoff capture the vitality of the city as well as the individuals and institutions that made possible a modern, democratic American culture by focusing on the multiple roles that New York City played in the lives of the artists and institutions they investigate. -- A. Joan Saab H-Urban, H-Net Reviews

New York's domination of the world art scene from the early 20th century to the 1970s was, according to Scott and Rutkoff, a great anomaly, born of factors unlikely ever to be repeated: the economic and political disruption of Europe in the two world wars; the relative poverty of the non-European world; and the great gulf between New York City and other U.S. cities. These Kenyon College history professors distill an enormous range of scholarly work on visual art, architecture, music, drama and dance, as well as on movements like Dada and fields like museum studies, although there is little primary work in evidence. Admirably and correctly, they treat the development and elaboration of jazz (from ragtime to swing to bop to "third stream" and beyond) as equivalent in significance to the elements in the more familiar narrative of how the American artists of Stieglitz's 291 gallery, and the scandalous European modernists exhibited at the 1913 armory show, led to the institutionalization of the avant-garde by the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. The authors' clear vision of New York as the center of a plurality of modern arts, particularly after WWII, is bolstered by their minute attention to the social structures and political ideals that undergirded the polis and supported the artistic community. They are particularly astute in their scathing indictment of 1950s and '60s urban renewal, and in their documentation of Harlem's central role in all the arts. While experts will most likely find omissions, the authors must be credited with making an earnest effort not to oversimplify their charting of a spectacular artistic firmament. (May)