Reviewed by Patricia Coronel | Reviews | Journal of American Ethnic History, 27.1

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Reviewed by Patricia Coronel | Reviews | Journal of American Ethnic History, 27.1 | The History Cooperative

Reviews

Native Moderns: American Indian Painting, 1940–1960. By Bill Anthes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006. xxx + 235 pp. Photos, illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. $84.95 (cloth); $23.95 (paper).

In the two decades from 1940 to 1960, the Western art world saw a shift from European-based art movements to American-initiated modernism. This was especially true in painting, with artists establishing an avant-garde style later to be identified as abstract expressionism. Artists used color and gesture to express ideas that were, for the most part, nonobjective. New York became the center for emerging art which introduced an expressive medium that was not uniformly received or preferred over generally accepted naturalistic subject matter and illusionism. American Indian painters found their art defined and judged by conflicting aesthetic criteria. What criteria were essential for a painting to be labeled American Indian art? Could American Indian painting be modern within the established avant-garde definition? This volume by Bill Anthes addresses these queries and others by choosing select, but specific, examples of artists who stretched the plurality of modernism beyond formalist European and American categories.

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