Three Musicians by Pablo Picasso, 1921
The radical innovations made by European and American painters and sculptors between 1900 and 1960 forever altered the way we think about visual art. Before World War I, Fauvist and Expressionist painters challenged the traditional Western concept of beauty, while Pablo Picasso and Kazimir Malevich took on thousands of years of art history by exploring the controversial realm of abstraction.
Between the wars, artists as different as Salvador Dalí and Frida Kahlo made images based on their dreams and hallucinations. Later, American art finally achieved international recognition through the enormous, dramatic canvases of Jackson Pollock, paving the way for several decades of cultural prominence that began in the 1960s.
In this richly illustrated course, art historian Nancy G. Heller, professor emerita of art history at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, discusses major works by the period’s seminal painters and sculptors, emphasizing their broader socio-political and aesthetic contexts.
July 29 New Art for a New Century
Revolutionary developments in France begin with Fauvism—the glorious color and joyous shapes of Henri Matisse and other related painters including André Derain and Marguerite Thompson Zorach.
August 5 Empathy and Shock
While Fauvism was revolutionizing French art, radical German Expressionists like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Kaethe Kollwitz, and Ernst Barlach created powerfully emotional paintings, prints, and sculptures.
August 12 Beyond Realism and Narrative
Examine the invention and dissemination of Cubism by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, and the totally nonrepresentational works of Kasimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, and Hilma Af Klint.
August 19 Exploring the Subconscious
Dada, a product of World War I nihilism, as seen in the art of Marcel Duchamp, and its descendant, Surrealism, is exemplified by the wild imaginings of Salvador Dalí and the extraordinary autobiographical paintings of Frida Kahlo.
August 26 The Triumph of American Painting
After the Second World War the United States becomes the international center for cutting-edge art, seen in the huge and dramatic canvases of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Lee Krasner.
5 sessions
General Information
