Art--Social Conflicts

Which industrialists were known for their support of the arts

Henry Ford and John D Rockefeller

What was the name of the people who celebrated the efficiency and democracy that could be achieved through technology

Machine Age Idealists

Where and when was Charles Sheeler born

Philadelphia in 1883

What and where did Charles Sheeler study

Painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

When was Sheeler exposed to cubism

On a trip to Paris in 1909

Which magazines did Sheeler work for as a photographer

Vogue and Vanity Fair

What did Sheeler collaborate on with photographer Paul Strand

Manhatta, a silent movie romanticizing the sky scrapers of Ne York City

What is precisionism

Sheeler’s hard-edged, photorealist painting style celebrating modern technology

Which artists other than Sheeler practiced precisionism

Preston Dickinson, Elsie Driggs, and Louis Lozowick

Taylorism(scientific management)

The use of scientific studies of motion to maximize output while decreasing waste by having workers limit their movement around the factory and perform small repetitive tasks, being overseen by managers

When and by who was taylorism developed

In the 1880s by Frederick Winslow Taylor

Fordism

The mass production system that built upon taylorism by using an assembly line and conveyor belt

What percentage of market share did the Ford Motor Company have in 1911

20%

What percentage of market share did the Ford Motor Company have in 1913

48%

How many cars was Ford producing in the 1920s

2.3 million cars per year / 1 car every 30 seconds

How much did Ford’s workers make

$5 per day; double the average daily rate($2.50)

What threat did Ford face in 1927

Ford’s competitor, General Motors, pioneered customization and the “annual model change”, leading to a situation where style mattered to consumers more than functionality

What did Ford hire Sheeler for in 1927

To photograph the newly re-tooled River Rouge plant as part of his P.R campaign to combat General Motors

Which image from the River Rouge photographs became famous

Criss-Crossed Conveyors

Elements of Sheeler’s photograph Criss-Crossed Conveyors

• The worm’s eye view of the image exaggerates how the conveyor belts and smokestacks tower above the viewers

• High contrast appearance

• Sharp focus

• The darks sides of two conveyor belts intersect in the form of a cross to make a religious allusion

• Angles created by the crossing conveyors echo the triangular forms in the steel truss supports

• Railcars and the way one of the conveyors seems to disappear underground stress the complexity and interconnectedness of systematic manufacturing

• Referenced Taylorism

What was the consequence of Sheeler’s work for hire

Sheeler to be unofficially expelled from the Stieglitz circle in 1923

Why don’t the River Rouge photographs show any people

Fordism’s elimination of wasteful movement downplays the individuality of workers and focuses instead on the machines themselves

President Calvin Coolidge’s quote showing contemporary attitudes on technology and Fordism

“The man who builds a factory builds a temple. The man who works there worships there.”

Vers Une Architecture(1923)—Towards an Architecture

A collection of essays by Swiss architect Le Corbusier where he marvels at the functionality of bridges, factories, elevators, and other industrial architecture that he saw when visiting America and compares them to ancient constructions like the Parthenon.

Which works did Sheeler paint using the River Rouge photographs as source material

American Landscape(1930) & Classic Landscape(1931)

How does Charlie Chaplin express the negative attitudes towards Fordism after the stock market crash

In the silent movie Modern Times(1936), the protagonist, struggling to keep up with the increasing pace of the production line, gets sucked into the cogs of the machine

What happened to Sheeler in 1959

He suffered a stroke that ended his painting career

When and where was Tina Modotti born

In the Northern Italian city of Udine in 1896

What was Tina’s original name

Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti

Where did Tina work between 1909 and 1912

In a textile factory, which some consider an important foundation for her later dedication to workers’ causes

When did Tina move to San Fransisco

1913

Where did Tina work when she first moved to San Fransisco

At the Magnin department store, then later as a model

Who did Tina marry in 1917/1918

Poet Roubaix “Robo” de l’Abrie Richey

Which silent movies did Tina Modotti act in

The Tiger’s Coat(1920), Riding with Death(1921), and I Can Explain(1922)

What happened to Tina in 1922

Robo died of smallpox in Mexico City while she was on the way there to join him. After his funeral, she stayed on to complete his work on an exhibition at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes(National School of the Fine Arts)

Who did Tina begin learning photography from in the mid-1920s

Photographer Edward Weston

What did Tina do after her politics became more radical

She joined the Communist Party of Mexico and worked as a propagandist for the Soviet embassy

What elements of Tina’s work did she learn from Weston

Close cropping, dramatic lighting, and sharp focus to make familiar objects seem unfamiliar

Elements of Hands Resting on a Tool(1927)

• It is an image of a pair of brown-skinned hands folded on the metal handle of an unidentified tool

• Sharp focus on the hands and handle but the worker’s body and clothes are blurry

• The hands are ambiguous in their gender

• The hands are deeply scored and the skin appears dry and cracked

• The texture of the tool handle appears dry and rough, creating visual similarity between the user and their tool

• Most likely a portrait of an Indigenous campesino(a Mexican peasant farmer)

Indigenismo

The new Mexican interest in Indigenous life and heritage post-Mexican Revolution

Which of Weston’s works were meant to convey Indigenismo

Bandolier, Corn, Sickle(1927), Woman of Tehuantepec(1929), Hands Washing(1927)

Which other movement influenced Tina’s work

An international “worker photography” movement that began in Europe, with the motto “The camera is a weapon in the class struggle”

What separated Tina’s work from other 1920s photography

Other photographs deleted workers entirely. Unlike Tina Modotti, they focused on the relationship between the workers and the machines rather than on the laborers themselves

Which 1930s photographers also began to focus on the hands of industrial workers

Dorothea Lange and Russell Lee

What happened to Tina in 1929

Following an assassination attempt on the presidential candidate Pascual Ortiz Rubio, the Mexican government banned the Communist Part and she was arrested then deported

Why was Tina Modotti able to return to Mexico in 1939

She was fleeing the rise of fascism

When did Tina Modotti die

1942

When and where was Aaron Douglas born

1899 in Topeka, Kansas

Where did Douglas graduate from and when

The University of Nebraska School of the Fine Arts in 1922

Where did Douglas first work

In Kansas City, Missouri as a high school art teacher for two years

Who encouraged Douglas to move to New York in 1925

Charles S. Johnson, the editor of Opportunity, a journal published by the National Urban League

What influence did German artist Winold Reiss have on Douglas’ work

He encouraged him to bring African influences into his compositions. Reiss was known for his portraits of Black leaders and Douglas built upon Reiss’ use of African inspirations to develop his own style.

Which publications did Douglas draw covers for early in his career

• The NAACP journal The Crisis

• Johnson’s Opportunity magazine

• The magazine Fire!!

God’s Trombones: Seven N**** Sermons in Verse(1927)

A book of poems by James Weldon Johnson, which Douglas illustrated. The painting Let my People Go was later developed from this book.

When did Douglas move to Paris

1931/1932

Notable Douglas mural locations

• Fisk University(1930)

• The New York Public Library(1934)

• The Texas Centennial Exposition(1936)

What did Douglas do from 1940-1966

Worked as a professor of painting in the art department of Fisk University, a historically Black university in Nashville

When did Aaron Douglass die

1979

Let My People Go(1935-1939)

A series of eight paintings Douglas made as enlarged colored versions of the black and white designs he created when illustrating God’s Trombones