Art May 2013
On "The New Spirit: American Art in the Armory Show, 1913” at the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ.
Invitation to the Beefsteak dinner, John Sloan Manuscript Collection, Delaware Art Museum
Walking through The New Spirit: American Art in the Armory Show, 1913, you might wonder just how much the Montclair Art Museum sets aside for the purchase of artificial evergreens. Potted miniatures ring the Sherman Family Gallery, wherein items documenting the organization and response to the Armory Show are on display; in the exhibition proper, garlands of plastic are draped on high. What initially seems a PoMo fillip turns out to be a recreation of the original installation at the Sixty-ninth Regiment Armory. The evergreen tree was conceived as a symbol for “the new spirit” of art heralded by the exhibition. Posters...