Showcasing the extraordinary achievements of the proponents of Polish modernism from the 1890s to 1918, this ground-breaking book brings together pioneering research with beautiful imagery. Mloda Polska, or Young Poland, embraced the integration of fine and applied arts, motivated by a desire to establish a distinctive national style at a time of political uncertainty. Patriotic values were expressed through a diverse visual language that was fuelled by national identity, but also looked beyond Poland to Western Europe and the influences of Impressionism, Expressionism, Symbolism, Art Nouveau, while also displaying parallels with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. Young Poland's painting has been discussed within an international arena, but its decorative arts and architecture has yet to enjoy broad exposure. Here, for the first time, the considerable achievements of the movement's applied artists will be discussed, both from a national and international perspective. Highlighting Young Poland's integration of fine and decorative arts, the movement's ideological, stylistic and formal commonalities with British Arts and Crafts, and the vision of Ruskin and Morris, will be drawn out to provide fascinating insights for Western and Eastern audiences alike.

Illustrating the first 75 years of Chicago's influential Polish neighborhood. Polish Downtown is Chicago's oldest Polish settlement and was the capital of American Polonia from the 1870s through the first half of the 20th century. Nearly all Polish undertakings of any consequence in the U.S. during that time either started or were directed from this part of Chicago's near northwest side. Chicago's Polish Downtown features some of the most beautiful churches in Chicago - St. Stanislaus Kostka, Holy Trinity and St. John Cantius - stunning examples of Renaissance and Baroque Revival architecture that form part of the largest concentration of Polish parishes in Chicago. The headquarters for almost every major Polish organization in America were clustered within blocks of each other and four Polish-language daily newspapers were published here. The heart of the photographic collection in this book is from the extensive library and archives of the Polish Museum of America, still located in the neighborhood today.

"Cavanaugh's scholarship is distinguished by several qualities: detailed knowledge, a rare comparative awareness of adjacent disciplines, and of course, a substantial, synthetic knowledge of modern artistic developments in Western Europe and the U.S. Out Looking In will be relevant to a large and varied public."--John E. Bowlt, author of Forbidden Art: Soviet Nonconformist Art, 1956-1988 "This is an essential book for scholars of modernism who are eager, in the wake of post-structuralist and post-modernist reevaluations of the construction of modernism's history, to broaden discussions beyond a narrow French orientation. It will serve as an important stimulus for rethinking European art in general in this period."--Linda Dalrymple Henderson, University of Texas, Austin "Clearly written and well organized, [Out Looking In] will be the indispensable reference work in English on early modern Polish art. Cavanuagh's treatment, based on solid research and critical insight, is illuminating."--Vojtech Jirat-Wasiutynski, Professor of Art, Queen's University "The visual richness and comprehensiveness of Out Looking In will make it a primary resource in the West for images of early modern Polish art as well as arguing for the centrality of Polish art to the discussion of European modernism. This is revisionism at its most insightful."--Wendy Salmond, author of Arts and Crafts in Late Imperial Russia "This book goes a long way in correcting our geographically narrow understanding of European modernism. While arguing for Poland's place in the annals of artistic modernism, Cavanaugh elegantly manoeuvers between the sensitive issues determining national artistic identity and the international context of this debate."--Myroslava M. Mudrak, Ohio State University "This is one of the most important critical analyses of turn-of-the-century Polish art. Out Looking In will inspire a broad response from a wide international cricle of historians of art, literature, and artistic culture."--Wieslaw Juszczak, Art Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Letters and Art History Department, University of Warsaw

Describes the history, government, economy, people, geography, and cultural life of Poland.