Early American Modernist Painting 1910–1935 by Abraham A. Davidson (review)

Leonardo, Vol. 17, No. I, pp. 52-67, 1984. Printed in Great Britain. BOOK REVIEWS Readers are invited to send book reviews as well as suggestions/or books/or review to the Book Review Board at the Main Editorial Office. Street Murals. Volker Barthelmeh. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1982. 120 pp., illus. Cloth, $20.00. ISBN: 0-894-25783-6 (hardback), 0-89471196 -3 (paperback). Reviewed by Ralph Putzker* This book documents examples of 'street murals' done in the United States, England, Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands since the late 1960s. Barthelmeh gives a brief history of murals during the 1910-1940s in Mexico and the United States and a succinct history of the street murals ofthe past decade. All the reproductions (nearly 150)are in color, beautifully and carefully printed, and nearly all are full-page illustrations. The book is outstanding in quality and in its relevance to the artist, architect, and art historian, and in price. The photographs ofthe murals, many of them now destroyed or covered by new construction, were done with great sensitivity and skill. In many, bits and pieces of the neighborhood, passersby, parked automobiles, children playing, and graffiti have been included, making them exciting human documents. The quality and the direction of incident light falling on the murals was carefully considered when the photographs were made. In some instances, the sky color in the photograph and the sky color in the mural are close enough that, for a moment or two, the wall dissolves and the mural becomes reality. Where the mural was designed with a specific horizon line/vanishing point (for example, the 'St Charles Painting' in Venice, California), the camera was positioned to coincide with the geometry of the painting, and the result is excellent. The quality of the photographs-the essence of the book-is exemplary. There are a few lines of annotation for most of the paintings, listing sponsors, artists, occasion, date, current status, and thematic explanation. Underneath the illustration proper is the location (complete with street addressl), date, title, and the artist, designer, or group that did the work. The murals themselves range from great sophistication of imagery to the naive, from very large to small, from profound social comment to delightful visual pun, from individual effort to the work of large social organizations, from subtle understatement to explosive impact. They are never dull. The book is fascinating and belongs in every library (individual, institutional, research, public) concerned with the art forms of the present. The murals are (and perhaps should be) ephemeral-time, new construction, and new climates of opinion will destroy them. But they offer unique insight into the thought and iconography of the 1970s in America, Britain, and western Europe. This book is the only such documentation I have seen. Intellectually, esthetically, and emotionally, this book is a strong stimulus for further research, documentation, and production of street murals. I recommend it without reservation. Early American Modernist Painting 1910-1935. Abraham A. Davidson. Harper & Row, London, 1982.324 pp., illus. Cloth, $25.00. ISBN: 0-06430975 . Reviewed by Harry Rand** Abraham Davidson's enterprising new book describes Modernist painting beginning with the appearance of "The Eight" and the Armory Show, through the arrival of European immigrant Modernists driven to the United States by fascism. During this era between the world wars, Modernism gained a modest beachhead, but did not ultimately succeed *P.O. Box 73, Half Moon Bay, CA 94019, U.S.A. **National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Eighth and G Streets, N.W., Washington D.C. 20560, U.S.A. 52 in its campaign to enlist American sympathies. As a group, these pioneers of the Modernism have not enjoyed general recognition. Davidson outlines the parallel factions that together represent the movement-the Stieglitz group, the Arensberg circle, precisionisrn, synchronism, and other more-or-less independent coteries and protagonists. This wide program of analysis and description is sufficiently challenging as to be impossible within the scope of this book. Much of the material (like the dates of the first solo shows) might have been handled more elegantly by chronologies or tabular display. The text is so clogged with raw data in an attempt...