international modernism

In outward material expression, Modernist objects could not fully dissolve their links to nineteenth-century precedents in that art and design relied on traditional forms against which their newness could be read. Varied sources of inspiration included the Bauhaus, analytical philosophy, Surrealist painting and Abstract art, photography as a medium and the advent of moving pictures, new building materials and technologies, quantum and relativistic physics, well-made objects from the Arts and Crafts movement, twelve-note composition in music, and 1930s Art Deco and Art Moderne skyscrapers. All of these prototypes stood as examples of what might be possible when not looking to the classics for inspiration. Manifest in consumer products from radios to kitchen appliances to cars to suburban enclaves, Modern artifacts tell us something of the mid-century world that inherited expressions from many Modernist thinkers who emigrated to the United States before, during, and after World War II.

international modernism
modernism in the u.s.
modernism in north carolina
modernism in greensboro