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Art in America 1945-1970: Writings from the Age of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Minimalism
The quarter century after the end of World War II was a period of startling transformation in American art, signaled first by the triumph of abstraction and the ascendancy of painters such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline, and then by the advent of Pop and Minimalism. The vitality of this creative explosion shifted the center of the art world from Paris to New York and generated a body of writing of singular significance and style. In the words of editor Jed Perl, “there has never been a period when the visual arts have been written about with more mongrel energy—with more unexpected mixtures of reportage, rhapsody, analysis, advocacy, editorializing, and philosophy.”
In this Library of America volume, Perl, an acclaimed art critic and historian, gathers for the first time the most vibrant contemporary accounts of this momentous period—by artists, critics, poets, gallery owners, and other observers—conveying the sweep and energy of a cultural scene dominated (in the poet James Schuyler’s words) by “the floods of paint in whose crashing surf we all scramble.”
This was a time when art mattered, and there was no lack of passionate, articulate voices to argue why and how. It was an age of contention and enthusiasm, when questions of style and representation, of commercialism and artistic rigor, were fundamental. Here are statements by the most significant painters, sculptors, and photographers—the diaries of Joseph Cornell and Charles Burchfield, the meditative essays of Jack Tworkov, the deadpan aphorisms of Andy Warhol, the manifestos of Marcel Duchamp and Ad Reinhardt—and major critical essays by Clement Greenberg, Harold Rosenberg, Meyer Schapiro, Hilton Kramer, and other influential figures. Here too is an electrifying array of responses by poets and novelists, reflecting the interplay between different art forms: Susan Sontag on happenings, John Ashbery on Joan Mitchell, Frank O’Hara on David Smith, James Agee on Helen Levitt, James Baldwin on Beauford Delaney, Truman Capote on Richard Avedon, Tennessee Williams on Hans Hofmann, Ralph Ellison on Romare Bearden, Jack Kerouac on Robert Frank. The atmosphere of the time—from the Cedar Tavern to the Museum of Modern Art—comes to vivid life in memoirs, diaries, and journalistic reports by Peggy Guggenheim, Edwin Denby, Morton Feldman, Grace Hartigan, Larry Rivers, Dwight Macdonald, Calvin Tomkins, and others.
Jed Perl weaves all this writing together with engaging headnotes that establish the historical background, sketch the outsized personalities of the artists and critics, and chart the battle lines of the aesthetic contests that defined the era. The result is an unprecedented cultural history told by those who made it, what Perl describes as “a magnificent, cacophonous sort of oratorio, with soloists and choir members agreeing about little except that the time has come for American art to take its place on the world stage.” It is a book that every art lover will treasure.
In this Library of America volume, Perl, an acclaimed art critic and historian, gathers for the first time the most vibrant contemporary accounts of this momentous period—by artists, critics, poets, gallery owners, and other observers—conveying the sweep and energy of a cultural scene dominated (in the poet James Schuyler’s words) by “the floods of paint in whose crashing surf we all scramble.”
This was a time when art mattered, and there was no lack of passionate, articulate voices to argue why and how. It was an age of contention and enthusiasm, when questions of style and representation, of commercialism and artistic rigor, were fundamental. Here are statements by the most significant painters, sculptors, and photographers—the diaries of Joseph Cornell and Charles Burchfield, the meditative essays of Jack Tworkov, the deadpan aphorisms of Andy Warhol, the manifestos of Marcel Duchamp and Ad Reinhardt—and major critical essays by Clement Greenberg, Harold Rosenberg, Meyer Schapiro, Hilton Kramer, and other influential figures. Here too is an electrifying array of responses by poets and novelists, reflecting the interplay between different art forms: Susan Sontag on happenings, John Ashbery on Joan Mitchell, Frank O’Hara on David Smith, James Agee on Helen Levitt, James Baldwin on Beauford Delaney, Truman Capote on Richard Avedon, Tennessee Williams on Hans Hofmann, Ralph Ellison on Romare Bearden, Jack Kerouac on Robert Frank. The atmosphere of the time—from the Cedar Tavern to the Museum of Modern Art—comes to vivid life in memoirs, diaries, and journalistic reports by Peggy Guggenheim, Edwin Denby, Morton Feldman, Grace Hartigan, Larry Rivers, Dwight Macdonald, Calvin Tomkins, and others.
Jed Perl weaves all this writing together with engaging headnotes that establish the historical background, sketch the outsized personalities of the artists and critics, and chart the battle lines of the aesthetic contests that defined the era. The result is an unprecedented cultural history told by those who made it, what Perl describes as “a magnificent, cacophonous sort of oratorio, with soloists and choir members agreeing about little except that the time has come for American art to take its place on the world stage.” It is a book that every art lover will treasure.
864 pages, Hardcover
First published October 9, 2014
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250 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 12, 2019
Read for a class I took this semester. Solid assemblage of art writing from a formative period in American cultural history --from Grace Hartigan's journals to poet Edwin Denby on de Kooning; Clement Greenberg's early AbEx criticism to excerpts from Warhol's memoirs.
February 5, 2022
Over the past few months, I’ve been slowly reading this collection of essays and using the remnants of old watercolor sets on cut-up cardboard boxes to make paintings of each author or artist. I’d recommend this method for a deeper enjoyment of this fun and informative time-capsule.
August 25, 2025
Great reference for details about artists in that time period.
September 14, 2015
There are some really good essays in this book and some things I was surprised by, like the Charles Burchfield journals. I've never been a big fan of Burchfield's art, but his journal entries were quite nice and gave you sense of the man and how he worked. Some great things by Harold Rosenberg who I had forgotten was a very "outspoken" man, to say the least!
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February 6, 2015709.7309 A7845 2014
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews