GA: Athens

Jonas Lie (American, b. Norway, 1880–1940), "Bridge and Tugs," 1911–15. Oil on canvas, 34½ x 41½ inches. Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Museum purchase with funds provided by C. L. Morehead Jr., GMOA 2001.179.
Jonas Lie (American, b. Norway, 1880–1940), “Bridge and Tugs,” 1911–15. Oil on canvas, 34½ x 41½ inches. Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Museum purchase with funds provided by C. L. Morehead Jr., GMOA 2001.179.

 

WHERE: Georgia Museum of Art.

WHEN: Opens Saturday, September 17 and on view through December 11, 2016.

Icon of Modernism: Representing the Brooklyn Bridge, 1883–1950

This show will feature approximately 40 paintings, works on paper and photographs by major American and European artists. Among others and including artists: Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Steichen, Joseph Stella, George Luks, Jonas Lie, William Louis Sonntag Jr., Reginald Marsh, Louis Lozowick, John Marin, Childe Hassam, Ernest Lawson and Samuel Halpert.

Curated by Sarah Kate Gillespie, Scholar Alan Trachtenberg said, “the Brooklyn Bridge symbolized and enhanced modern America.” From its opening in 1883 to the present day, artists have repeatedly depicted the bridge as a stand-in for both the city of New York and for the idea of modernity as defined by that city’s urban life.

During the period this exhibition treats, when artists were engaging with new forms of visual representation such as Impressionism, Cubism and Precisionism, they utilized newly built structures such as the bridge, the Woolworth building and the Flatiron building in conjunction with these innovative formal techniques to underscore the contemporary nature of their artistic production.

This exhibition, featuring the Brooklyn Bridge, examines these modes of representation and how artists grappled with a particularly American brand of modernity as both positive and negative from U.S. and European perspectives.

MORE DETAILS: http://georgiamuseum.org/art/exhibitions/upcoming.