Existing comment:
Armory Show 1913:
In February 1913, the opening of the International Exhibition of Modern Art at New York's 69th Regiment Armory brought forth wildly varied reactions in the press. The exhibition, which introduced avant-garde European art to the United States, was a dramatic event; the more debate it stimulated, the more influence the exhibition and its artists garnered. President Theodore Roosevelt, who viewed art as an agent of cultural advancement, famously denounced the European modernism in the Armory Show (as it became known), likening the cubists to the ploys of PT Barnum. He reproached European artists for using shock to fleece money from the public with the sale of their work. The electrifying story of the Armory Show is central to the history of modern art in America, and the cast of characters involved in organizing, promoting, and financially supporting perhaps the most important exhibition ever held in the United States deserved recognition on its one-hundredth anniversary. This end of the gallery features a selection of portraits of some of the Armory Show's key participants, including Walter Pach, the influential co-organizer of the exhibition, whose portrait by Jacques Villon is a recent acquisition. |