Despite closing in on a century of separation, the culture and industry that defined the 1920s has helped it to remain one of the more celebrated decades in American history. This sentiment is captured in the Cleveland Museum of Art's Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties.
"One of the things that really distinguishes this exhibition is that it combines painting, sculpture and photography," says deputy director and chief curator Griff Mann. Opening July 1, the exhibit features work by 67 artists, including Ansel Adams, Edward Hopper and Georgia O'Keeffe.
"There is certainly an aesthetic that emerges that seems to be quintessentially American," says Mann. "It's urban, it's sophisticated, it's intimately tied with this kind of coexistence between industry and commerce and a new-found sense of confidence as a nation."
"It's a beautiful coming together of human and machine," Mann says. Showcasing one of the decade's most lasting influences, Hine's goal was to add a humanizing element to the massive impact production had on the era. "He actually staged that picture," says Mann. "This was a very carefully crafted image done to really celebrate how important human contribution was to industry."
This painting shows the view looking down from a skyscraper. "There are recognizable urban forms that you can see in the composition, but it's totally abstracted. It's all about surfaces and different planes," says Mann. "We're now so comfortable seeing the world from tall buildings, but imagine how novel that must have been in the 1920s to have that kind of vantage point."
This piece, celebrating the then-innovative practice of passenger air travel, has a notable local connection. "[Driggs] actually rode in a plane, just like the one she painted, from Cleveland to Detroit. It just gives you a sense of how central a city Cleveland was in that moment, especially to the emerging aerospace industry," says Mann. "The painting has a direct link to the city."
One of the more distinctive works in the collection due to its lack of naturalistic imagery, it displays an African tradition transforming into an American art form. "It kind of hums with sound. You can almost sense the pulse of the music," says Mann. "That piece is throbbing with a sense of energy and vitality, a lot of which you would have felt in the speakeasies and jazz bars."
