artists, especially the Futurists, had demonstrated interest in bur-
geoning technology, Americans generally seemed more enamored by
the prospects of a mechanized society than did Europeans. Even the
Frenchman Francis Picabia, Duchamp’s collaborator, noted: “Since
machinery is the soul of the modern world, and since the genius of
machinery attains its highest expression in America, why is it not
reasonable to believe that in America the art of the future will flower
most brilliantly?”^21 Precisionism, however, expanded beyond the ex-
ploration of machine imagery. Many artists associated with this
group gravitated toward Synthetic Cubism’s flat, sharply delineated
planes as an appropriate visual idiom for their imagery, adding to
the clarity and precision of their work. Eventually, Precisionism
came to be characterized by a merging of a familiar native style in
American architecture and artifacts with a modernist vocabulary de-
rived largely from Synthetic Cubism.
CHARLES DEMUTH One of the leading Precisionists was
Charles Demuth(1883–1935), who spent the years 1912–1914 in
Paris and thus had firsthand exposure to Cubism and other avant-
garde directions in art. He incorporated the spatial discontinuities
characteristic of Cubism into his work, focusing much of it on in-
dustrial sites near his native Lancaster, Pennsylvania.My Egypt
(FIG. 35-37) is a prime example of Precisionist painting. Demuth
depicted the John W. Eshelman and Sons grain elevators, which hereduced to simple geometric forms. The grain elevators remain in-
sistently recognizable and solid. However, the “beams” of transpar-
ent planes and the diagonal force lines threaten to destabilize the im-
age and correspond to Cubist fragmentation of space. The degree to
which Demuth intended to extol the American industrial scene is
unclear. The title,My Egypt,is sufficiently ambiguous in tone to ac-
commodate differing readings. On the one hand, Demuth could
have been suggesting a favorable comparison between the Egyptian
pyramids and American grain elevators as cultural icons. On the
other hand, the title could be read cynically, as a negative comment
on the limitations of American culture.
GEORGIA O’KEEFFE The work of Wisconsin-born Georgia
O’Keeffe(1887–1986), like that of many artists, changed stylistically
throughout her career. During the 1920s, O’Keeffe was a Precisionist.
She had moved from the tiny town of Canyon to New York City in
1918, and although she had visited the city before, what she found
there excited her. “You have to live in today,” she told a friend. “Today
the city is something bigger, more complex than ever before in history.
And nothing can be gained from running away. I couldn’t even if I
could.”^22 While in New York, O’Keeffe met Alfred Stieglitz (FIG. 35-39),
who played a major role in promoting the avant-garde in the United
States. Stieglitz had established an art gallery at 291 Fifth Avenue in
New York. In “291,” as the gallery came to be called, he exhibited the lat-
est in both European and American art. Thus, 291, like the Armory
Show, played an important role in the history of early-20th-century art
in America. Stieglitz had seen and exhibited some of O’Keeffe’s earlierAmerica, 1900 to 1930 93735-36Aaron Douglas,Noah’s Ark,ca. 1927. Oil on Masonite,
4 3 . Fisk University Galleries, University of Tennessee, Nashville.
In Noah’s Arkand other paintings of the cultural history of African
Americans, Douglas incorporated motifs from African sculpture and
the transparent angular planes characteristic of Synthetic Cubism.35-37Charles Demuth,My Egypt,1927. Oil on composition board,
2 113 – 4 2 6 . Collection of Whitney Museum of American Art, New
York (purchased with funds from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney).
Demuth was one of the leading Precisionists—American artists who
extolled the machine age. This painting depicts grain elevators reduced
to geometric forms amid Cubist transparent diagonal planes.1 ft.
1 ft.