Aoibheann Sweeney, Director, Center for the Humanities, The Graduate Center, CUNY.
James Johnson Sweeney (1900–1987) was Director of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art from 1945 to 1946 and Director of the Guggenheim Museum from 1952 to 1959. Owing to the fact that the dates of these two prominent directorships span the postwar period, the rare scholars who have attended to his work have done so mostly in the context of the cold war and in the ongoing debate about abstract expressionism. But Sweeney’s connection to European and American modernists through the 20s and 30s changes the story. This talk focuses on Sweeney’s career in the context of The Making of Americans exhibition.
This event was held in conjuction with the James Gallery exhibition “The Making of Americans.” For more information, click here.