Swing Landscape by Jennifer Mccomas
An insightful study of the progressive politics animating a great work of modernist mural painting In 1936 the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project commissioned Stuart Davis (1892–1964) to paint a mural for the Williamsburg Houses, a New York City housing project. Though the mural, Swing Landscape, was never installed in its intended location, it survives as an impressive testament to Davis’s energetic, colorful brand of abstraction and the progressive politics that animated it. This study explores the painting, one of the greatest of twentieth-century America and arguably Davis’s most ambitious work. This book challenges the prevailing tendency to separate Davis’s leftist activism from his art and contextualizes Swing Landscape within 1930s abstract mural painting in New York, emphasizing the politics of abstraction. The book also offers the first comprehensive look at the Williamsburg mural commission, including works by Willem de Kooning, Ilya Bolotowsky, and others. The result is an indispensable resource on interwar modernism, mural painting, and urban development. Published in association with the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University Exhibition Schedule: Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University (February 5–May 22, 2022)
Jennifer McComas is curator of European and American art at the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University. Jody Patterson is associate professor and Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Chair of Art History at Ohio State University.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780300250671 |
| ISBN 10 | 0300250673 |
| Title | Swing Landscape |
| Author | Jennifer Mccomas |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Yale University Press |
| Year published | 2020-09-08 |
| Number of pages | 164 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |