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Indepth Arts News:
"Art of the Mid-Century, Modernism"
2005-05-16 until 2005-07-02
Childs Gallery
Boston, MA,
USA United States of America
Childs Gallery, 169 Newbury Street, Boston, will be exhibiting Art of the Mid-Century from May 16 through July 2. There has been a renewed interest over the past few years in the Modern Movement in art and design, particularly of the period during the mid-twentieth century, broadly referred to in design circles as Mid-Century Modern. As an artistic movement, Modernism required a self-conscious break with the past in which new forms of expression were created as a celebration of the present.
The traditional forms of art, literature, and society had become outdated, and it was therefore essential to sweep them aside and reinvent culture. Machine and mass-production were the tools of the change, which facilitated the massive housing boom following World War II. These sleeker and more “streamlined” products and forms that resulted have come to define the term “modern” for us. By the late 1940s modern design had begun to enter every phase of the lives of middle class Americans—in architecture, furniture, appliances, fabrics, and automobiles. The Modernist movement in art continued outside of—and parallel to Abstract Expressionism, including a modernized figurative and realist tradition. Most of the focus on classic Modernism has been on works before 1945. Most of the focus on collecting post-1945 has been on Abstract Expressionism.
Childs Gallery has always taken pride in offering works before a style or artist is generally accepted in the market. The period of the Mid-Century, particularly now that we are far enough away from it to evaluate it more critically, offers a new opportunity to re-evaluate and re-discover this very interesting and under-rated period. Our show Art of the Mid-Century endeavors to demonstrate the breadth of the work created during that period, as well as to show that even some of the more traditional work was modern in spirit and form as well. Featured are some earlier works of Sally Michel, the transitional and fully abstract work of Henry Botkin, and works by Ben Norris, Ted Davis, Boris Margo, Vaclav Vytlacil and Edward Laning.
IMAGE
Henry Botkin
Galaxy
1959-1960
oil on board with mixed media
34 X 44 inches
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