The idea for the Ashmolean Museum’s spring 2018 exhibition was born out of a grant in 2015 from the Chicago-based Terra Foundation to the University of Oxford to support visiting professorships. The key objectives were to establish American art from the colonial period as a new field of study for master’s students in art history, introduce the visual arts of the US to undergraduate students in history and art history, and provide global perspectives on American art to scholars and curators in Oxford and beyond.
This coincided with a desire of the director of the Ashmolean, Alexander Sturgis, to explore American modernism as an exhibition theme. America’s Cool Modernism: O’Keeffe to Hopper looks at a seam of interwar American art that is relatively unknown, particularly in the UK. It is almost impossible for the British public to see works by American artists from the first half of the 20th century in public museums. More startlingly, there are no paintings by any artist represented in this show in any UK public collection.
The word “cool” can mean hip or charismatic, but it can also stand for “composed”, as in calm, still, distant, even absent. America’s Cool Modernism traces an idea about detachment as an artistic response to the modern world. It includes paintings, prints and photographs made by US artists between 1915 and 1945 in which human beings are absent or removed.
The works use abstract forms and impersonal qualities to evoke machine-like characteristics and often seem frozen in time – otherworldly – and emit an underlying uneasiness. As a publisher, I couldn’t wait to get started.
Working with the book designer Robert Dalrymple, one of the first things we discussed was the fonts to use for the catalogue. We agreed on two typefaces: the main one being Electra, which was designed by William Addison Dwiggins in 1935 and was intended to be a “modern roman type letter with personality”, avoiding a direct revival of any historical model.
The second typeface we used in the catalogue was MVB Sweet Sans, which is more modern. It was set by Mark van Bronkhorst in 1991 but based on antique engravers’ lettering templates called “masterplates”.
As a museum publisher, we are often challenged on our choice of fonts, particularly if there is other strong branding to compete against, but in this case we felt these choices did justice to the works on the pages.
Due to the paucity of artworks available for the UK public to view and learn about, we felt it was important to set the scene from the outset: a number of details were selected and used as double-page spreads across the first 10 pages of the catalogue. I felt this was an unusual but effective approach.
Another big challenge was intellectual property rights. There were obvious easy wins, such as Georgia O’Keeffe, with the estate being represented in the UK by the Design and Artists Copyright Society. But other, less well-known artists, such as Benton Spruance (1904-67), proved more of a challenge, but I eventually tracked down a grandson in Australia, who was delighted to see his grandfather’s work represented. The clearing of rights to use the works undoubtedly took longer to complete than the design and approval of the catalogue, but the end result is worth it.
Working directly with colleagues at the Terra Foundation for American Art (Katherine Bourguignon and Julie Boulage) ensured that communication at all stages of the process was open and genial. I am grateful to them for their generosity in sharing their knowledge of such a fascinating era of American art.
Declan McCarthy is the head of publishing and licensing at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. America’s Cool Modernism: O’Keeffe to Hopper is at the Ashmolean Museum until 22 July
This coincided with a desire of the director of the Ashmolean, Alexander Sturgis, to explore American modernism as an exhibition theme. America’s Cool Modernism: O’Keeffe to Hopper looks at a seam of interwar American art that is relatively unknown, particularly in the UK. It is almost impossible for the British public to see works by American artists from the first half of the 20th century in public museums. More startlingly, there are no paintings by any artist represented in this show in any UK public collection.
The word “cool” can mean hip or charismatic, but it can also stand for “composed”, as in calm, still, distant, even absent. America’s Cool Modernism traces an idea about detachment as an artistic response to the modern world. It includes paintings, prints and photographs made by US artists between 1915 and 1945 in which human beings are absent or removed.
The works use abstract forms and impersonal qualities to evoke machine-like characteristics and often seem frozen in time – otherworldly – and emit an underlying uneasiness. As a publisher, I couldn’t wait to get started.
Working with the book designer Robert Dalrymple, one of the first things we discussed was the fonts to use for the catalogue. We agreed on two typefaces: the main one being Electra, which was designed by William Addison Dwiggins in 1935 and was intended to be a “modern roman type letter with personality”, avoiding a direct revival of any historical model.
The second typeface we used in the catalogue was MVB Sweet Sans, which is more modern. It was set by Mark van Bronkhorst in 1991 but based on antique engravers’ lettering templates called “masterplates”.
As a museum publisher, we are often challenged on our choice of fonts, particularly if there is other strong branding to compete against, but in this case we felt these choices did justice to the works on the pages.
Due to the paucity of artworks available for the UK public to view and learn about, we felt it was important to set the scene from the outset: a number of details were selected and used as double-page spreads across the first 10 pages of the catalogue. I felt this was an unusual but effective approach.
Another big challenge was intellectual property rights. There were obvious easy wins, such as Georgia O’Keeffe, with the estate being represented in the UK by the Design and Artists Copyright Society. But other, less well-known artists, such as Benton Spruance (1904-67), proved more of a challenge, but I eventually tracked down a grandson in Australia, who was delighted to see his grandfather’s work represented. The clearing of rights to use the works undoubtedly took longer to complete than the design and approval of the catalogue, but the end result is worth it.
Working directly with colleagues at the Terra Foundation for American Art (Katherine Bourguignon and Julie Boulage) ensured that communication at all stages of the process was open and genial. I am grateful to them for their generosity in sharing their knowledge of such a fascinating era of American art.
Declan McCarthy is the head of publishing and licensing at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. America’s Cool Modernism: O’Keeffe to Hopper is at the Ashmolean Museum until 22 July
