NEW HORIZONS IN AMERICAN ART
Holger Cahill (introduction)
Holger Cahill (introduction): NEW HORIZONS IN AMERICAN ART. New York: the Museum of Modern Art, September 1936. First edition [3,000 copies]. Quarto. Blue cloth titled in gilt. Printed dust jacket. 172 pp. 102 black and white illustrations. Trivial jacket chipping to top edge. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print. A fine copy in a nearly fine dustjacket. Rare thus.
7.75 x 10 hardcover book with 172 pages and 102 black and white illustrations. Foreword by Alfred H. Barr, Jr. “Three thousand copies of this catalog were printed for the Trustees of the Museum of Modern Art by The Spiral Press, New York.” “The design for the jacket has been adapted from the cartoon of a mural ‘The Influence of Science on Textile Production’ by Michael Loew of New York.”
“New Horizons in American Art is the story of the great national undertaking which has introduced so dramatic and vital an element into the pattern of our cultural life. ‘A visual report to the public’ of the Federal Art Project’s first year, it is an inspiring as well as an informative document. In thirty-three forthright and enlightening pages Holger Cahill discusses the specific values—social, economic, and esthetic—of a nation-wide enterprise.”
“For the first time in American art history a direct and sound relationship has been established between the American public and the artist . . . New horizons have come into view. American artists have discovered that they have work to do in the world.” — Holger Cahill, National Director Federal Art Project, Works Progress Administration
- Foreword by Alfred H. Barr, Jr.
- New Horizons in American Art by Holger Cahill
- Plate Selection: individual sections devoted to
- Murals
- Easel Paintings
- Graphic Arts
- Sculpture
- Allied Arts
- Children’s Work
- Catalog of the Exhibition
- Index of the Artists
Includes work by Edgar Britton, Alfred Crimi, Wyatt Davis, Ralf Henricksen, Hester Miller Murray, Emanuel Jacobsen, Karl Kelpe, Edwin Boyd Johnson, Max Spivak, James Michael Newell, Mitchell Siporin, Anatol Shulkin, Karl Knaths, Pedro Cervantez, Joseph De Martini, Emmet Edwards, Karl Fortress, Leon Garland, Leon Kelly, Louis Guglielmi, Lawrence Lebduska, William Littlefield, Jack Levine, Loren MacIver, Austin Mecklem, Roland Mousseau, Gregorio Prestopino, Jane Ninas, Red Robin, Manuel Tolegian, Eugene Trentham, Arnold Wiltz, Edgar Yaeger, Frede Vidar, Cameron Booth, Rainey Bennet, Raymond Breinin, Bob Brown, Samuel J. Brown, Glenn Chamberlain, Carlos Dyer, Joseph De Mers, Helen Blackmur Dickson, Stuart Edie, Thomas Flavell, Stanford Fenelle, Jack Greitzer, Oronzo Gasparo, Isolde Therese Gilbert, Edward Lewandowski, Lester Schwartz, Andree Rexroth, Ann Michalov, William Earl Singer, John Stenvall, William Sommer, Elizabeth Terrell, Karl Zerbe, Joseph Vavak, Hugh Miller, Joaln Gross Bettelheim, Horatio C. Forjohn, F. G. Becker, Julius Weiss, Eli Jacobi, Patrocino Barela, Samuel Cashwan, Concetta Scaravaglione, and Hugo Robus among others.
A Museum of Modern Art press release dated September 5th, 1936: “The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 55 Street, announces that the scope of its first exhibition for the 1936-1937 season, New Horizons In American Art, will be greatly enlarged, and that the exhibition, which opens to the public Wednesday, September 16, will be on view through Monday, October 12. Outstanding work by artists all over the country on the Federal Art Project has been selected by the Museum and will include not only paintings, sculpture, murals, graphic arts and children's work but also a large selection of work done by artists on the Index of American Design. The exhibition will be comprised of 435 objects and will fill three and one-half floors of the Museum. Although selections have been made on the basis of quality alone, without regard to regional representation, all sections of the country will be represented. Most of the exhibits will be the work of artists unknown or little known to the New York art world. The Museum had not planned an exhibition of Federal Art Project work for its new season; in fact, its 1936-1937 exhibition schedule had been announced, when the quality of the Project work so impressed both the President of the Museum, A. Conger Goodyear, and its Director, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., that they decided to revise the schedule to make room for New Horizons in American Art.
“This is the third exhibition of 'Government' art which the Museum has shown” said Mr. Barr. "In the fall of 1934 the Museum exhibited a selection of work done under the Public Works of Art Project; in June 1936, an exhibition of Architecture in Government Housing; and now the selection of work done under the Federal Art Project, which was organized just a year ago in August 1935. I am convinced that the work to be exhibited in New Horizons in American Art shows a remarkable increase in quality over preceding work done under government patronage, and this includes not only projects created under recent emergency measures but also previous projects for public buildings and their decoration during the past one hundred years. I feel that one very important result of the recent expansion of Government participation in the artistic welfare of our country has been the improvement in official taste, which has heretofore been dominated by a comparatively small group of academic artists and architects.
“I am very glad Indeed that such an exhibition can be held at the Museum of Modern Art. Mr. Holger Cahill, Director of the Federal Art Project, is to be congratulated upon the results of his year of sympathetic and discerning work. I believe that the Federal Art project has won the confidence of artists throughout the country and in so doing has made possible a great advance in the art of our country, not only in mural painting but in easel painting and graphic art and, what is most important, in the public understanding and appreciation of art.
“The Federal Art Project supports the art of the present; but another very important part of it is devoted to documenting American art of the past. This is the Index of American Design. The drawings and watercolors of the Index are technically beautiful In themselves and reveal the extraordinary wealth of American traditions in the useful arts."
“The purpose of the Index of Amerioan Design Is to depict in line drawing and watercolor the rise and development of the decorative arts in this country. It will consist of portfolios Illustrating handmade furniture, pottery, silverware, glassware, iron work, toys, clothing, dolls, leather work and other objects of use and decoration. The finished Index will not be a dull compilation of facts, figures and photographs. It will show the objects in their true colors and textures and will grow more valuable with passing years as an authoritative and illuminating picture of the setting and accessories of American life from the earliest settlement of this country on up through the 19th century.
“Individuals and museums all over the country are allowing the finest pieces from their collections to be reproduced in the Index. In addition, research workers on tho project are discovering and rescuing choice treasures neglected or forgotten in out-of-the-way places. From New England and upper New York come the beautiful and chaste furniture designs and glowing textiles, handmade by the remarkable craftsmen of Shaker communities. New England also supplies designs in crewel work, quilts and dolls. From New Mexico come reproductions of native paintings on wood made by early New Mexican artists. Some of the so paintings are on ordinary pieces of furniture; others are small wooden plaques on which the figures and faces of saints have been painted in what might be called the Spanish-American Colonial style. In Pennsylvania the project workers have recorded the highly individual painted chests, pottery, iron work, toys and wood carvings of the Pennsylvania Germans. Project workers in Louisiana have copied the exquisite and delicate iron work of that region, showing the early French influence. California presents painted and hand-wrought leather saddles and stirrups as well as magnificent grill work—all showing the Spanish-American Colonial influence. New York's great treasures in the line of decorative arts are silverware and furniture designed and made by early American craftsmen.
“It is only in the past half century or so that European countries have established museums of decorative art—In Vienna, Munich, Moscow and in the South Kensington Museum in London. The Index of American Design, organized less than a year ago, is doing very much the same work in American but is doing it on a much more comprehensive scale.“