New York in 1913 was the capital of the new. The city was a seething hotbed of the latest ideas in social reform and radical politics. Technologies like the telephone opened lines of communication as never before, while ambitious new buildings changed the face of the city.
American art
Even though the Armory Show is remembered for introducing the European avant-garde, it began as an exhibition of the latest American art. Half of the works in the 69th Regiment Armory were by American artists, and visitors could see paintings and sculpture by artists who were the leaders of the American moderns such as Robert Henri and John Sloan, and the young artists who would form the next American avant-garde, like Stuart Davis and Charles Sheeler.
European art
In 1913, most Americans had never seen sculptures by Constantin Brancusi, or paintings by Marcel Duchamp or Henri Matisse. The Armory Show was a startling revelation of the latest art movements from abroad. But the organizers also included paintings from the previous century that showed how artists who were once considered radical, had become celebrated masters.
Paintings
The American and European paintings in the Armory Show represented a dizzying variety of styles and movements, from Impressionism to the urban realism of the Ashcan School, to the romantic fantasies of the French symbolist painter Odilon Redon, to the Fauvist and Cubist works that confounded and delighted visitors in 1913.
Sculpture
There were over three hundred sculptures in the 69th Regiment Armory. The American works were a sharp contrast with Europe; visitors saw figural works and animal subjects by American artists that would have seemed tame compared to the abstracted forms of Archipenko and Brancusi.
Works on paper
Nearly a quarter of the works at the Armory Show (more than 450 objects) were works on paper, including drawings, pastels, watercolors, and prints. Drawing was the perfect medium of modernity; it allowed artists the freedom to experiment and improvise with line while using the intense colors available through watercolor and pastel. Many Americans were print aficionados, and at the Armory Show they saw not only traditional techniques, but also innovative directions in printmaking that gave the medium new power.
Behind the Scenes in 1913
The exhibition was organized in just over a year by a short-lived group of twenty-five artists who formed the Association of American Painters and Sculptors (A.A.P.S.). The Archives of American Art holds the papers of Walt Kuhn and other key figures, such as Walter Pach and Jerome Myers and other archives hold important materials as well. They offer fascinating glimpses into the worries, excitement, and fierce conflicts behind the scenes, along with installation views of the show, and the pamphlets, postcards, and other materials that visitors took home with them.
The Armory “Funnies”
Along with an avalanche of criticism in newspapers and journals, the Armory Show inspired cartoons. Some parodied the carnivalesque experience of seeing radical new paintings and sculptures. Some lampooned individual works of art. A few poked fun at the experts who were “in the know” about the new works. All asserted the right of popular audiences to circumvent critical authority and make their own judgments about latest developments in art.
The International Exhibition of Modern Art took place in the 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets. Its enormous drill hall provided over 30,000 square feet of display space for the estimated 1,400 works on view. The hall was divided into eighteen octagonal galleries with burlap covered panels. The space was decorated with greenery, pine trees, flags and bunting, and yellow streamers that formed a tent-like cap to the exhibition space. About half the works in the exhibition were American and half were European, and though only a handful of artists are remembered for their participation in the Armory Show, three hundred participated, from artists who are considered iconic masters today, to those who are no longer familiar.
Click on a gallery to see images of some of the works that were there, along with a list from the 1913 exhibition catalogue.
