The Eight and American Modernisms explores through more than fifty paintings and approximately thirty works on paper the under-appreciated stylistic complexities of eight artists—Arthur B. Davies, William Glackens, Robert Henri, Ernest Lawson, George Luks, Maurice B. Prendergast, Everett Shinn, and John Sloan. The artists, recognized as painters of urban realism, are now emerging as the first generation of early American modernists.
The Eight, as they came to be called, caught the attention of the American art world with one astoundingly successful exhibition in New York’s Macbeth Galleries in 1908. In their prime and on the verge of success, the artists were seen as challenging the academic preference for the genteel tradition of “art for art’s sake,” which had dominated the American art establishment for many decades. The exhibition traveled to major art institutions on the East Coast and in the Midwest and was the first and only by The Eight. Ever since, the conventional assessment of The Eight’s artistic partnership has focused primarily on the themes of urban “realism” in their work rather than on their stylistic individuality, which Henri praised as an imaginative freedom that follows “no unity in any cult of painting.” This exhibition expands the scholarship on subject matter to highlight the distinct formal qualities of each artist’s work. The Eight and American Modernisms is built from three outstanding collections of art by these American originals, joined together on the centennial of The Eight’s premiere tour.
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Terra Foundation for American Art is the lead sponsor for The Eight and American Modernisms. Caxambas Foundation is the Milwaukee Art Museum’s presenting lead sponsor. Additional support provided by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Donald and Barbara Abert Fund, at the advice of Barbara Tooman.
The Eight and American Modernisms is organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum, the New Britain Museum of American Art, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. It is curated by Elizabeth Kennedy of the Terra Foundation for American Art and organized at the Milwaukee Art Museum by Liz Flaig.
The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs is sponsored as a tribute to Henry Fuldner by the Trustees of the Layton Art Collection with gifts from the Faith and Willard Henoch and Frederick Vogel III Family Funds; the American Heritage Fund; the Dudley and Constance Godfrey Foundation, Inc.; David and Dedi Knox; and the Milwaukee Art Museum’s American Arts Society and Collectors’ Corner.
The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs is organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Chipstone Foundation, and American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation. It is curated by Joseph Cunningham of American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation and organized at the Milwaukee Art Museum by Sarah Fayen.
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