Modern & Contemporary Art August 26, 2008

This collection reflects the great expressive and formal diversity of the 20th century. In the early 1900s, Modernism introduced radical notions of art, represented in the collection by work of Henri Matisse, the Cubist-inspired painting of Stuart Davis and the Surrealistic work of Theodore Roszak. In contrast, the urban realism of the century's early years is exhibited by John Sloan and Robert Henri. Regionalism, a later reaction against Modernism, is represented in superb examples by Grant Wood, John Steuart Curry and Thomas Hart Benton, whose works reflect the artists' devotion to bedrock American values. Abstract Expressionism, one of America's first great contributions to the history of art, is exemplified in the collection by Jackson Pollock, Hans Hofmann and Helen Frankenthaler, while the response to consumer culture known as Pop Art is illustrated in the work of George Segal and Tom Wesselmann. A considerable variety of contemporary sculpture is also represented by such artists as Deborah Butterfield, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Petah Coyne and Martin Puryear.