Frustrated by the art world’s elitism and the snobbish exclusivity of the academy’s juries, eight American painters united in 1908 to upend the establish norms and stage their own exhibition of modernist art. The Eight and American Modernisms showcased the work of these artists, known as The Eight (Arthur B. Davies, William Glackens, Robert Henri, Ernest Lawson, George Luks, Maurice Prendergast, Everett Shinn, and John Sloan) and re-asserted their significance to American modernism in the early twentieth century. Curated by Terra Foundation for American Art curator Elizabeth Kennedy, the works in the exhibition were culled from three partnering institutions: the Milwaukee Art Museum, the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut, and the TFAA. Eight sections, each displaying an individual artist’s works, totaled approximately 70 oil paintings, watercolors, pastels, drawings, and prints. An examination of each artist’s stylistic evolution over decades revealed the under-appreciated complexities of these artists’ work and challenged the accepted wisdom about the evolution of the modernist style.
Dates & Venues
March 6–May 24, 2009
New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, United States
June 6–August 23, 2009
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
Works of Art from the Terra Foundation Collection
- William Glackens, Bal Bullier, c. 1895
- William Glackens, A Headache in Every Glass, 1903–04
- William Glackens, Julia’s Sister, c.1915
- William Glackens, Beach, St. Jean de Luz, 1929
- Robert Henri, Figure in Motion, 1913
- Ernest Lawson, Springtime, Harlem River, 1900–10
- Ernest Lawson, Spring Thaw, c. 1910
- Ernest Lawson, Brooklyn Bridge, 1917–20
- George Luks, Knitting for the Soldiers: High Bridge Park, c. 1918
- Maurice Brazil Prendergast, At the Seashore, 1895
- Maurice Brazil Prendergast, The Breezy Common, between 1895 and 1897
- Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Evening on a Pleasure Boat, 1895–97
- Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Salem Willows, 1904
- Maurice Brazil Prendergast, St. Malo, after 1907
- Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Still Life with Apples and Vase, between 1910 and 1913
- Maurice Brazil Prendergast, The Grove, c. 1918–23
- Everett Shinn, Theater Scene, 1903
Publication
Kennedy, Elizabeth, ed. The Eight and American Modernisms. Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art; distributed by the University of Chicago Press, 2009.
