Building Americanism Of Hodern Art

This thesis focused on how Alfred H.Barr.Jr.,and his collaborators,the first generation of the curators of New York's Museum of Modern Art(MoMA),defined for Americans the very nature of modern art through exhibitions at MoMA from the 1930s to the 1940s.Based on the cultural context in the early twentieth century,this thesis analyzed the connections between the "marginal" American artists and exhibitions and the major European art movements.Specifically,this thesis discussed the controversy,prejudice,and convergence with regard to the forming of the narrative of American modern art history before the prevalence of Abstract Expressionism.The exhibitions "American Painting and Sculpture,1862-1932" and"American Realists and Magic Relists" not only emphasized the development of the American modern art,but also cooperated with the European art exhibitions during the same period,which composed one of the most significant clues in the Western modern art history.