The Ashcan school and The Eight: "creating a national art"

Abstract

"Robert Henri and artists of the Ashcan Circle and the Eight stand today as America's first modern art movement: rejecting their academic training and the centuries-old National Academy of Design's exhibition practice, they forged a new and vital art that represented shifting American values and the country's own sense of identity. The Milwaukee Art Museum holds one of the largest and most important collections of art related to the Ashcan Circle and the Eight in the country, totaling nearly two hundred works across media, including paintings, drawings and illustrations, pastels, and prints. This catalogue features rarely-seen works and popular favorites, emphasizing the Ashcan School's contribution to the formation of American modernism at the beginning of the twentieth century"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

"To be felt, not seen" : the landscapes of Robert Henri / Brandon Ruud -- The "American Ward"? : Italian immigration and the Ashcan School's Greenwich Village / Margarita Karasoulas -- The unseen city : the Ashcan School's New York / John Fagg -- The dynamic artist : physiological and perceptual theory in the work of Arthur Bowen Davies / Nikki Otten -- "For every citizen" : building an Ashcan School collection in Milwaukee / Brandon Ruud.