Artists included in this exhibition: Leo Amino, Eugene Berman, Clarence Carter, Federico Castellon, Julio De Diego, Louis Eilshemius, Jimmy Ernst, Adolph Gottlieb, John Graham, James Guy, Hans Hofmann, Gerome Kamrowski, Boris Margo, Walter Murch, Bertrand Old, Alfonso Ossorio, Irene Rice Pereira, Walter Quirt, Attilio Salemme, Charles Seliger, Kurt Seligman, Joseph Solman, Theodoros Stamos, Pavel Tchelitchew, George Tooker, Laurence Vail, and John Wilde
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery's spring exhibition, Surrealism & Magic Realism in American Art, illustrates the impact of the Surrealist movement on American Art during the 1930s and its contribution toward the ferment of abstract expressionism in the 1940s.
During the 1930s American galleries and museums mounted significant exhibitions of Surrealism in addition to publishing catalogues. At the end of the decade many European Surrealists fled World War II and settled in New York where they became members of the creative community. As a result, American artists were exposed to the novel expressions of Surrealism and many were quick to respond.
Surrealism provoked a diverse range of responses from the Americans who interpreted and adapted its aesthetics and ideology to satisfy their own creative goals. Some artists imbued their art with the vitality and abstract sensibility of automatism, while others created their own dream-like visions of reality. Surrealism & Magic Realism in American Art surveys the various reactions to Surrealism by American artists.
