The American modernist movement of the early- to mid-20th century was as complex as it was dynamic. In part a reaction to the European avant-garde, and in part an attempt to establish a uniquely American aesthetic, modernism in America encompassed a wide array of subjects, styles, and philosophies. In discussing American modernism, one is immediately confronted with the difficulty of defining it. American modernists shared with their European counterparts an interest in machines, urbanity, and an embrace of new technology (1). But American modernism, while undoubtedly influenced by the European avant-garde, simultaneously rejected their ideologies. American artists were committed to defining what they saw as a uniquely American form of modernism, separate from that of Europe. In fact, this search for artistic identity could be called “the primary cultural and critical issue of the Post-World War I era” (2). Perhaps one of the best ways to understand American modernism is
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