Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and the establishment of the culture of modernism in America.
Item
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Title
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Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and the establishment of the culture of modernism in America.
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Identifier
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AAI9325112
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identifier
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9325112
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Creator
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Kantor, Sybil Gordon.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Milton W. Brown
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Date
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1993
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Art History | American Studies
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Abstract
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It is the purpose of this dissertation to examine the education of Alfred H. Barr., Jr. the founding director of the Museum of Modern Art, and the cultural and intellectual matrix of the twenties which accumulatively provided the ideas for the direction he took. The most important thread that runs through his various approaches to art was his commitment to a formalist point of view. This trajectory, over more than two decades, (1918-1939) follows the development of Barr's taste and aesthetic theories parallel to the emergence of modernism on the one hand, and of the discipline of art history on the other. Barr brought with him to the Museum, in 1929, an academic scholarly attitude towards art that had been taking shape within university life for the preceding few decades; Alfred Barr ran his museum like a university following a program of research, publishing and teaching. The radical avant-garde was approached by Barr through the perspective of academic training, enabling him to document and institutionalize their efforts in the museum.;Barr's art catalogues and books have remained important resources for the scholarship of the art of the first half of this century. His critical theory, never made explicit, could be interpolated from his activities as a curator and his writings on wall labels and in catalogues and books. Barr's involvement with the support system of dealers, museums, and collectors was pertinent toward this end as they shared his task of documenting the establishment of modernism in America. Also, Barr's relationship with his circle of friends at Harvard, such as Lincoln Kirstein, Edward M. M. Warburg, Philip Johnson, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, P. J. Sachs, Agnes Mongan, Jere Abbott, as well as, with Holger Cahill, Dorothy Miller, J. B. Neumann, and Katherine Dreier, are examined as they contributed to the institutionalizing of modernism in the United States. The various manifestations of modern art that occurred in the twenties and the possible effect that they had on Barr's theoretical ideas claim our attention: the exhibitions of the Societe Anonyme, the Chicago Institute of Art, the Barnes Foundation, the Newark Museum, the Little Review, the Dial and the Harvard Society of Contemporary Art, as well as his interactions with the artists of the Bauhaus in Germany and the Vkhutemas in Russia.;Despite his reliance on the artists' point of view, ideologically more social and political, Barr remained a "purist" bent on establishing the parameters of modern art.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy Restricted.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.