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Abstraction Unframed: Abstract Murals in New York, 1935-1960

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Abstraction Unframed: Abstract Murals in New York, 1935-1960 University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2017 Abstraction Unframed: Abstract Murals In New York, 1935-1960 Emily S. Warner University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Recommended Citation Warner, Emily S., "Abstraction Unframed: Abstract Murals In New York, 1935-1960" (2017). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2630. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2630 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2630 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstraction Unframed: Abstract Murals In New York, 1935-1960 Abstract In the decades around World War II, a number of abstract painters sought to “unframe” their abstractions and expand them into wall-filling murals. This dissertation analyzes moments from the history of unframed abstraction during modernism’s rise and popularity in the United States, from ca. 1935 to ca. 1960, in and around New York. Scholars have generally treated such murals as large-scale paintings rather than murals; moreover, they have located American abstraction’s growing scale firmly in the postwar years. This dissertation revises these views by examining the rich history of abstract wall painting across the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, and situating the murals within the architectural, social, and institutional contexts of their sites. Installed on the walls of public houses, hospitals, private homes, and office buildings, these murals raised urgent questions about art’s place in daily life, abstraction’s relationship to decoration, and collaboration between architects and painters. Using archival sources and period literature, it reconstructs the spatial and visual logic of the murals, many of which are now lost or altered. It also draws on a growing interest in reception and consumption within studies of modern American art. Arranged roughly chronologically, each chapter examines murals located in a different site type: the public institutions of the New Deal state, the pavilions of the 1939 World’s Fair, the 1940s home, and postwar commercial and civic buildings. The project situates the geometric abstractions of the American Abstract Artists within an ethos of community and social life, inculcated by the New Deal Art programs; compares painted and kinetic murals at the 1939 Fair to contemporary graphic design and exhibition display; explores Jackson Pollock’s murals within the decorative values of the upper-middle-class home; and shows how both the American Abstract Artists and the Abstract Expressionists benefitted from a boom in postwar building, which enabled the realization of ambitious murals for educational, religious, and corporate spaces. Together, the chapters offer a history of how abstraction functioned in the built environment at a time of tremendous change in American social and cultural life. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group History of Art First Advisor Michael Leja Keywords abstract mural, muralism, painting and architecture, public art, public space Subject Categories History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2630 ABSTRACTION UNFRAMED: ABSTRACT MURALS IN NEW YORK, 1935-1960 Emily S. Warner A DISSERTATION in History of Art Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2017 Supervisor of Dissertation ___________________________ Michael Leja Professor of the History of Art Graduate Group Chairperson ___________________________ Michael Leja, Professor of the History of Art Dissertation Committee David Brownlee, Frances Shapiro-Weitzenhoffer Professor of 19th-Century European Art Christine Poggi, Professor of the History of Art ABSTRACTION UNFRAMED: ABSTRACT MURALS IN NEW YORK, 1935-1960 COPYRIGHT 2017 Emily Sansone Warner For my parents iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I extend my thanks, first, to my dissertation committee, to whom I owe an enormous debt of gratitude. Professor Michael Leja taught me how to practice art history, and the insights and methods gleaned from his courses continue to inform my work. I thank him for his early support of this project, his ongoing critical engagement with it, and his mentorship over the last several years. Professor David Brownlee introduced me to the world of modern architecture and encouraged my early investigations into the relationships between buildings and paintings. His keen editorial sense has improved my writing immeasurably. Professor Christine Poggi’s rigorous approach to the study of modern art and theory remains a model for me. This project has benefitted greatly from her critical insights and her sensitivity to visual form. This thesis could not have been researched and written without the support of several dissertation fellowships. The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Luce Foundation / American Council of Learned Societies, and the Dedalus Foundation provided crucial funding for fulltime research and writing. I thank Amelia Goerlitz, Randall Griffey, and Virginia Mecklenburg for their mentorship during these fellowships. A grant from the Mellon Humanities, Urbanism, and Design initiative at the University of Pennsylvania enabled further research travel. A project such as this one, which studies spaces and architectural ensembles that no longer exist or that have changed greatly in the intervening years, depends enormously on archival collections and their stewards. I wish to thank the staffs of the Adolph Gottlieb Foundation; the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; the iv American Art Department, Brooklyn Museum of Art; the La Guardia-Wagner Archives; the Dedalus Foundation; the Archives of the Museum of Modern Art; the Manuscript Division, New York Public Library; the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center; the Public Design Commission, New York City; the Roosevelt Island Historical Society; the National Archives and Records Administration; and the Sondra Gilman Study Center, Whitney Museum of American Art. Judith Berdy, Michelle Donnelly, Helen Harrison, and Tal Nadan were especially generous with their time and assistance, and I thank them. Throughout the project, fruitful exchanges with Sam Adams, Shiben Banerji, Juliana Barton, Iggy Cortez, Stephanie Hagan, Charlotte Ickes, Marina Isgro, Nicholas Juravich, Alexander Kauffman, Jeannie Kenmotsu, Ann Kuttner, Sandra Kraskin, Craig Lee, Barbara Michaels, Karen Redrobe, Joshua Shannon, and Martina Tanga have stimulated my thinking and pushed me to consider new ideas. Heather Hughes, Shana Lopes, and Joe Madura, who generously read drafts and offered critiques, were essential sources of support over the long writing process. I owe particular thanks to William Selinger, without whose love and support I could not have completed (or started) this dissertation. He has been an interlocutor and reader of the project from its earliest stages. His knowledge of intellectual history, his critical acumen, and, most of all, his ability to ask the piercing, big-picture questions at the right moments have shaped this dissertation deeply. Finally, I thank my sister, brother, and parents, who always believed in my success before I did. Their love, encouragement, and humor have made this dissertation possible. v ABSTRACT ABSTRACTION UNFRAMED: ABSTRACT MURALS IN NEW YORK, 1935-1960 Emily S. Warner Michael Leja In the decades around World War II, a number of abstract painters sought to “unframe” their abstractions and expand them into wall-filling murals. This dissertation analyzes moments from the history of unframed abstraction during modernism’s rise and popularity in the United States, from ca. 1935 to ca. 1960, in and around New York. Scholars have generally treated such murals as large-scale paintings rather than murals; moreover, they have located American abstraction’s growing scale firmly in the postwar years. This dissertation revises these views by examining the rich history of abstract wall painting across the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, and situating the murals within the architectural, social, and institutional contexts of their sites. Installed on the walls of public houses, hospitals, private homes, and office buildings, these murals raised urgent questions about art’s place in daily life, abstraction’s relationship to decoration, and collaboration between architects and painters. Using archival sources and period literature, it reconstructs the spatial and visual logic of the murals, many of which are now lost or altered. It also draws on a growing interest in reception and consumption within studies of modern American art. Arranged roughly chronologically, each chapter examines murals located in a different site type: the public institutions of the New Deal state, the pavilions of the 1939 World’s Fair, the 1940s home, and postwar commercial and civic buildings. The project vi situates the geometric abstractions of the American Abstract Artists within an ethos of community and social life, inculcated by the New Deal Art programs; compares painted and kinetic murals at the 1939 Fair to contemporary graphic design and exhibition display; explores Jackson Pollock’s murals within the decorative values of the upper- middle-class home; and shows how
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