Esther Adler – författare

The extraordinary life of a captivating American artist, beautifully illustrated with his dreamlike drawingsMuch of Joseph Elmer Yoakum’s story comes from the artist himself—and is almost too fantastic to believe. At a young age, Yoakum (1891–1972) traveled the globe with numerous circuses; he later served in a segregated noncombat regiment during World War I before settling in Chicago. There, inspired by a dream, he began his artistic career at age seventy-one, producing some two thousand drawings over a decade. How did Yoakum gain representation in major museum collections in Chicago and New York? What fueled his process, which he described as a “spiritual unfoldment”? This volume delves into the friendships Yoakum forged with the Chicago Imagists that secured his place in art history, explores the religious outlook that may have helped him cope with a racially fractured city, and examines his complicated relationship to African American and Native American identities. With hundreds of beautiful color reproductions of his dreamlike drawings, it offers the most comprehensive study of the artist’s work, illuminating his vivid and imaginative creativity and giving definition and dimension to his remarkable biography.Distributed for the Art Institute of ChicagoExhibition Schedule:The Art Institute of Chicago(June 12–October 18, 2021)Museum of Modern Art, New York(November 28, 2021–March 18, 2022)Menil Collection, Houston(April 22–August 7, 2022)

American Modern presents a fresh look at The Museum of Modern Art’s holdings of American art made between 1915 and 1950, and considers the cultural preoccupations of a rapidly changing American society in the first half of the 20th century. Organized thematically and featuring paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, and film, the publication brings together some of the Museum’s most celebrated masterworks, contextualizing them across mediums and amidst lesser-seen but revelatory works. The selection of works by artists such as Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Sheeler, Charles Burchfield and Stuart Davis include urban and rural landscapes, scenes of industry, still-life compositions and portraiture. Although varying in style and specifics, they share certain underlying visual and emotional tendencies. Cityscapes and factories are eerily emptied of the crush of residents that flocked to them, becoming both a celebration of clean modern form and technological advances, as in Sheeler’s paintings and photographs, and a reflection of anxiety about increasingly urban life-styles and their consequences for the American individual, as in Hopper’s iconic Night Windows. Equally silent rural scenes are no less haunting, but perhaps reflect a nostalgia for seemingly simpler times, and a celebration of early American traditions and values. Rather than an encyclopedic view of American art of the period, this volume is a focused look at the strengths and surprises of MoMA’s collection in an area that has played a rich and major role in the institution’s history.