Creative Composites: Modernism, Race, and the Stieglitz Circle (The Phillips Collection Book Prize Series)

Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism

Creative Composites: Modernism, Race, and the Stieglitz Circle (The Phillips Collection Book Prize Series) Details

Review “Kroiz’s book successfully––and significantly––underscores modernism’s roots in nativism and alterity. . . . Recommended.” (K. A. Schwain, University of Missouri, Columbia Choice 2013-04-19) Read more From the Inside Flap “Creative Composites provides an intelligent, rigorous account of several under-examined figures who gathered around the photographer Alfred Stieglitz and played important roles in the first American avant-garde. Drawing on rich archival sources, Lauren Kroiz revisits the cultural debates of the period and constructs an intricate and convincing comparative analysis of the role that gender, race and ethnicity, and cultural nationalism played in the construction of American modernism. This important historical and interpretive text represents a much-needed contribution not only to the history of American art but also to American social and cultural history.”―Marcia Brennan, author of Curating Consciousness: Mysticism and the Modern Museum“Describing the associations between immigrant critics and artists enmeshed in the New York art world in the early twentieth century, Kroiz skillfully demonstrates that American modernism reached beyond its European influences and was a deeply hybrid enterprise with multiple, global, and overlapping roots. Kroiz is sure-footed when seriously addressing works of art and marvelous at working through the issues around the ethnic identities of many of the key figures. Illuminating a crucial and oft-overlooked aspect of the history of American modernism―this peripatetic and shifting multiculturalism―Creative Composites is a timely, deeply researched text that highlights the wealth of mixed ancestry in our cultural heritage.”―Jessica May, author of American Modern: Documentary Photography by Abbott, Evans, and Bourke-White Read more About the Author Lauren Kroiz is Assistant Professor in the department of Art History at University of Wisconsin, Madison. Read more