American Art of the 20th Century

by Sam Hunter

583 pp., 988 illustrations 195 in full color.

Genres: Art

583 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Sam Hunter (January 5, 1923 – July 27, 2014) was an American historian of modern art. He was an author, an Emeritus professor of art history at Princeton University, director of the Jewish Museum, founding director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, acting director of the Minneapolis Institute of Art and a visiting professor at the Clark Art Institute at Williams College, Harvard University and various other institutions of higher learning.

He penned monographs, exhibition catalogues, articles, wrote the original book on the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, contributed to textbooks and various treatments of modern art. In addition to curating many museum and gallery exhibitions, Hunter has written on Francis Bacon, Tom Wesselman, George Segal, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Jackson Pollock, and many other contemporary and modern masters.

Reviews

[Sketchbook · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exceptional history of the American art scene up to the
early 70s. Great fun to read snippets of the 1913 exhibition
at the NYC Armory : Picasso, Matisse, Brancusi, Duchamp,
Leger, Rouault, Redon - and so on left critics spluttering.
"Pathological," fussed NYT. "Unadulterated cheek," gasped
Herald-Trib. 50 years later, when Pop Art hit, NYTs Hilton
Kramer vented his spleen against this sacrilege. Packed with
color pix + b&w, this scholarly study of artists-movements,
written w clarity and good sense, explains the development
of modern art.

[Phyllis]

1973