"Chronicles how this landmark exhibition was put together, how it looked, and how it was received ... With twenty-one new color images and a completely updated catalogue raisonné of all the paintings, sculptures, and prints in the original show"--Cover.

A groundbreaking re-examination of the seminal 1913 New York art show.

"Explores the career of Walter Pach (1883-1958), an influential figure in twentieth-century art and culture. As critic, agent, liaison, and lecturer, Pach helped win the acceptance of modern European, American, and Mexican art throughout the North American continent"--Provided by publisher.

Published on the occasion of an exhibition held Feb. 17-June 16, 2013, at the Montclair Art Musem, Montclair, N.J.

For decades now, the story of art in America has been dominated by New York. It gets the majority of attention, the stories of its schools and movements and masterpieces the stuff of pop culture legend. Chicago, on the other hand . . . well, people here just get on with the work of making art. Now that art is getting its due. Art in Chicago is a magisterial account of the long history of Chicago art, from the rupture of the Great Fire in 1871 to the present, Manierre Dawson, László Moholy-Nagy, and Ivan Albright to Chris Ware, Anne Wilson, and Theaster Gates. The first single-volume history of art and artists in Chicago, the book—in recognition of the complexity of the story it tells—doesn’t follow a single continuous trajectory. Rather, it presents an overlapping sequence of interrelated narratives that together tell a full and nuanced, yet wholly accessible history of visual art in the city. From the temptingly blank canvas left by the Fire, we loop back to the 1830s and on up through the 1860s, tracing the beginnings of the city’s institutional and professional art world and community. From there, we travel in chronological order through the decades to the present. Familiar developments—such as the founding of the Art Institute, the Armory Show, and the arrival of the Bauhaus—are given a fresh look, while less well-known aspects of the story, like the contributions of African American artists dating back to the 1860s or the long history of activist art, finally get suitable recognition. The six chapters, each written by an expert in the period, brilliantly mix narrative and image, weaving in oral histories from artists and critics reflecting on their work in the city, and setting new movements and key works in historical context. The final chapter, comprised of interviews and conversations with contemporary artists, brings the story up to the present, offering a look at the vibrant art being created in the city now and addressing ongoing debates about what it means to identify as—or resist identifying as—a Chicago artist today. The result is an unprecedentedly inclusive and rich tapestry, one that reveals Chicago art in all its variety and vigor—and one that will surprise and enlighten even the most dedicated fan of the city’s artistic heritage. Part of the Terra Foundation for American Art’s year-long Art Design Chicago initiative, which will bring major arts events to venues throughout Chicago in 2018, Art in Chicago is a landmark publication, a book that will be the standard account of Chicago art for decades to come. No art fan—regardless of their city—will want to miss it.

In 1913 Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase exploded through the American art world. This is the story of how he followed the painting to New York two years later, enchanted the Arensberg salon, and—almost incidentally—changed art forever. In 1915, a group of French artists fled war-torn Europe for New York. In the few months between their arrival—and America’s entry into the war in April 1917—they pushed back the boundaries of the possible, in both life and art. The vortex of this transformation was the apartment at 33 West 67th Street, owned by Walter and Louise Arensberg, where artists and poets met nightly to talk, eat, drink, discuss each others’ work, play chess, plan balls, organise magazines and exhibitions, and fall in and out of love. At the center of all this activity stood the mysterious figure of Marcel Duchamp, always approachable, always unreadable. His exhibit of a urinal, which he called Fountain, briefly shocked the New York art world before falling, like its perpetrator, into obscurity. Many people (of both sexes) were in love with Duchamp. Henri-Pierre Roché and Beatrice Wood were among them; they were also, briefly, and (for her) life-changingly, in love with each other. Both kept daily diaries, which give an intimate picture of the events of those years. Or rather two pictures—for the views they offer, including of their own love affair, are stunningly divergent. Spellbound by Marcel follows Duchamp, Roché, and Beatrice as they traverse the twentieth century. Roché became the author of Jules and Jim, made into a classic film by François Truffaut. Beatrice became a celebrated ceramicist. Duchamp fell into chess-playing obscurity until, decades later, he became famous for a second time—as Fountain was elected the twentieth century’s most influential artwork.

The dramatic story of art in the twentieth century