Hammer Museum

Société Anonyme

23 Apr - 20 Aug 2006

Société Anonyme
Modernism for America
April 23 - August 20, 2006

This exhibition charts the development of the influential Société Anonyme and its establishment as one of the greatest collections of modernist works in America. Including approximately 200 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from the Société Anonyme Collection, the exhibition features works by such diverse and renowned artists as Josef Albers, Alexander Archipenko, Alexander Calder, Arthur Dove, Louis Eilshemius, Max Ernst, Paul Gauguin, Arshile Gorky, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Roberto Matta, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Kurt Schwitters, Joseph Stella, and Jacques Villon among many others.

The Société Anonyme was formed by Katherine S. Dreier and Marcel Duchamp in order to disseminate modern art in America through a succession of exhibitions and lectures during the 1920s and 1930s that introduced the American public to European and American avant-garde artists. In 1941, Dreier and Duchamp transferred the Société Anonyme Collection to Yale University in order to continue the educational aspirations of the organization.

The exhibition is organized by Dr. Jennifer Gross, Seymour H. Knox, Jr. Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, with the assistance of Dr. Susan Greenberg, Horace W. Goldsmith Associate Curator of Modern Art at Yale University. Following its debut at the Hammer Museum, the exhibition travels to The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; the Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; and the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee; before concluding at the renovated Yale University Art Gallery, Connecticut.

Image: Artist unknown
Katherine S. Drier and Marcel Duchamp in the library at The Haven, her estate in West Redding, CT.
1936
Katherine S. Dreier Papers/Société Anonyme Archive. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Above the bookshelf is Tu m', installed in 1931.
 

Tags: Josef Albers, Alexander Archipenko, Alexander Calder, Arthur Dove, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Paul Gauguin, Arshile Gorky, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Roberto Matta, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Kurt Schwitters