THE MODERNISTS: WITNESSES TO THE 20TH CENTURY

ON VIEW IN THE LEHR GALLERY OCTOBER 10, 2020 – JANUARY 17, 2021

Marc Chagall, L’Incendie dans La Neige, 1940–1943, gouache, pastel, pencil on paper. On loan courtesy of the Eric and Amy Huck Collection.

During the early to mid-20th century, artists witnessed, documented, and even participated in two devastating world wars. The aftermath of the collective trauma the world experienced changed the trajectory of creative culture forever. As a result, artists rejected the realism favored by their predecessors and experimented with new subjects, techniques, and media to portray the post-war world as they saw it. This half-century movement toward abstraction came to be known as Modernism.

The Modernists: Witnesses to the 20th Century, drawn from museum and private collections across the United States and curated by the Susquehanna Art Museum, features work by a variety of Modern artists. The exhibition illustrates the development of the Modernist aesthetic and how artists worldwide broke from long-standing artistic traditions.