VIRTUAL PROGRAM: Messy Modernism: Art in 20th-Century American Magazines
Virtual Norman Rockwell Museum Virtual Museum, StockbridgeVirtual Program
Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies Event
Wednesday, April 21, 2021 - 5 p.m.
Magazines are increasingly emerging as critical sites in developing a new understanding of the dynamic relationship between “fine” art and mass culture. Throughout the 20th century, a wide range of American periodicals commissioned artists to produce work for covers and feature stories, but many of these commissions have been left out of histories of modernism.
This session considers three case studies to convey the rich trajectory of art and magazines: Edward Hopper’s covers for the Wells Fargo Messenger, Mine Okubo’s drawings in Fortune magazine, and Saul Steinberg’s work for such publications as Life, Look, Sports Illustrated, and Time. The papers explore the origins of and motivations behind such commissions and analyzes the art as it was originally published in print, showing how advertisements, adjacent articles, and captions shaped the initial reception and understanding of the works.
Presenters and Topics:
Chair: Erika Doss - Professor of American Studies, University of Notre Dame; Rockwell Center Distinguished Fellow
- Edward Hopper and the “Wells Fargo Way” Leo G . Mazow -Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane Curator of American Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
- “Objectivity” in Wartime U.S.A.: Mine Okubo and Fortune Magazine Emily Hage - Associate Professor of Art History, Saint Joseph’s University
- Beyond The New Yorker: Saul Steinberg’s Other Magazine Commissions Melissa Renn - Collections Manager, HBS Art and Artifacts Collection, Harvard Business School.