Luminous Modernism: Scandinavia Art Comes to America, 1912
Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue at 38th Street, October 25, 2011 - February 2012
Harold Sohlberg, Flower Meadow in the North, 1905
Oil on canvas, 37.8 x 43.7 inches; 96 x 111 cm
The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo
As we celebrate the new year and the rebirth of light after the Winter Solstice, Scandinavia House on Park Avenue gives us one more reason to break out the akavit to commemorate an important occasion: Luminous Modernism. This exceptional exhibition presents 48 works by 20 artists who participated in a similar exhibition 100 years ago, sponsored by The American-Scandinavian Foundation. Back then, these young European artists offered a taste of the avant-garde hardly known in the United States - preceding the infamous Armory Show of 1913 (wherein Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending Staircase, No. 2 blew the critics' minds). Eight of the paintings in the 2011-12 exhibition were included in the 1912 exhibition.
