Native American Art and American Modernism

3 units

This class explores the connection between Native American Art and the eventual development of an American style in modern art and architecture, looking at Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona, the Northwest Coast, The Great Plains, and Canada. We will investigate Native American influences on the Art Deco and Modernist architecture of the early 1900s, and the references to Native American art in the modern art of William Baziotes, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Georgia O'Keefe and others. We also will consider modern Native American artists including R. C. Gorman and Amado Pena; and Mexican artists and architects who worked in the United States, such as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Juan O'Gorman, Luis Barragan, and Felix Candela.