Prehistoric Pictures and American Modernism

Elke Seibert is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Cultural Department Canton Nidwalden, Switzerland, specialising in the interdisciplinary study of reception processes in contemporary and fine art from the 18th to the 20th century.

Part One: Introduction
1 Preface
2 Prehistory as a Modern Idea in Europe and “Primitivism” as intertwined concepts (1900–1940)

Part Two: Prehistoric Artifacts, Prints, Painted Copies and the Genesis of Modern Art in New York (1937)
3 Alfred Barr’s View of Prehistory and Modernism as Shown at MoMA
4 Barr`s exhibition concept: “Prehistoric” Avant-Garde and Lala Eve Rivol’s Federal Art Project
5 Leo Frobenius’s Objectives, His Collection in Western debates—and Henry Moore
6 The Making of the MoMA Exhibition Prehistoric Rock Pictures in Europe and Africa
(28 April–30 May, 1937)

Part Three: The Art of Copying the Past—in Transatlantic Dialogue
7 Copies and Copyists: Pictorial Heritage at the Museum of Modern Art
8 Copying for the Index of American Design (1935–42)

Part Four: Modern American Abstract Art and their Re-appropriation of Prehistoric Rock Paintings
9 The Founding of the American Abstract Artists (1936) and their Appropriation of Prehistoric Rock Paintings (1937–40)
10 Bridging Time and Space:Transcontinental AAA Networks in the Interwar Period
11 The Influence of (prehistoric) Artistic Concepts from Mexico on the American Abstract Artists
12 Prehistorical Modernists: Gottlieb, Lassaw, Schanker, Smith

Part Five: Conclusion
13 The “Modernity” of Prehistory in the Thirties in Paris and New York

Appendix I and II
Bibliography
Index