721
Views
1
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Articles

“The Total Absence of Foreign Subjects”: The Racial Politics of US Interwar Exhibitions of Scandinavian Design

Archival Sources

  • Richard F. Bach Records, 1913–1953. The Archives of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.
  • Office of the Secretary Records 1870–, The Archives of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, hereafter abbreviated OSR/MMA.
  • R. T. H. (Richard Townley Haines) Halsey Research Papers. Collection 56, 75x80. The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera, The Winterthur Library, Winterthur, DE, hereafter abbreviated RTHH/WINT.
  • Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Painting and Sculpture: Exhibitions. Swedish Art Exhibition [1/30/1916–2/28/1916][01], 1/1916–2/1916. Brooklyn, NY, hereafter abbreviated BMA/DSPE.
  • Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Office of the Director (William Henry Fox, 1913–33), hereafter abbreviated BMA/ROD: WHF.
  • Records of Homelands Exhibitions. Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester NY, abbreviated in-text as MAG Archive. http://mag.rochester.edu/plugins/acrobat/history/homelands/DocsFromMAGArchives2.pdf

References

  • Alexander, Charles C. 1962. “Prophet of American Racism: Madison Grant and the Nordic Myth.” Phylon 23 (1): 73–90.10.2307/274146
  • American Scandinavian Society of New York. 1912. Exhibition of Contemporary Scandinavian Art, held under the auspices of the American-Scandinavian Society. Introduction by Christian Brinton. New York: The American Art Galleries.
  • “Art and Americanization”. 1920. “Arts and Crafts of the Homelands Exhibition.” The American Magazine of Art 11 (3): 97–101.
  • Art Institute of Chicago. 1896. Representative Works of Contemporary Swedish Artists. Chicago, IL: The Art Institute of Chicago. http://www.artic.edu/sites/default/files/libraries/pubs/1896/AIC1896SwedishArtists_comb.pdf
  • Bach, Richard. 1922. Letter to Henry Watson Kent, June 9. Box 3, Folder 21, 1921–1928. Richard F. Bach Papers.
  • Berman, Patricia G., ed. 2011. Luminous Modernism: Scandinavian Art Comes to America, A Centennial Retrospective, 1912–2012. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation.
  • Breck, Joseph. 1927. “Swedish Contemporary Decorative Arts.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 22 (1): 1, 3–4.
  • Breck, Joseph. 1926. Letter to Gregor Paulsson, June 2. Loan Exhibitions – Held – 1927, Swedish Contemporary Art – Correspondence with G. Paulsson, 1926–27, L7806, OSR/MMA.”
  • Brinton, Christian. 1912. “Introduction.” In Exhibition of Contemporary Scandinavian Art, held under the auspices of the American-Scandinavian Society. New York: The American Art Galleries. https://archive.org/details/exhibitionconte01laurgoog.
  • Brinton, Christian. 1916. “Contemporary Swedish Art.” The American Magazine of Art VII (8): 303–313. https://archive.org/details/jstor-20559448 ( this is an excerpt from the full catalog The Swedish Exhibition, also accessible online: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008962673).
  • Broberg, Gunnar, and Nils Roll Hansen, eds. 2005. Eugenics and the Welfare State: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
  • Brooklyn Museum. January 30, 1916a. Press release, BMA/DPS: Exhibitions. Swedish Art Exhibition [1/30/1916–2/28/1916] [01], 1/1912–2/1916.
  • Brooklyn Museum. February 28, 1916b. Unsigned memo, BMA/DSPE. Exhibitions. Swedish Art Exhibition [1/30/1916–2/28/1916] [01], 1/1912–2/1916.
  • Brooklyn Museum. February 23, 1916c. Press release, BMA/DPS: Exhibitions. Swedish Art Exhibition [1/30/1916–2/28/1916] [01], 1/1912–2/1916.
  • Buhl, E. A. 1939. Letter to Preston Remington, November 13. P9710, Purchases – Swedish & Danish Art – from NY World’s Fair Exh. 1939–40 1947. OSR/MMA.
  • Burroughs, John. 1910. “The Tonic of Winter.” Country Life in America 19 (December): 177–179.
  • Carbell, Maud. 1916. “Swedish Art Exhibited Here: Paintings Show Vigorous Winter Sports of North Country.” The Pittsburgh Dispatch, May 17, n.p. BMA/ROD: WHF. File #618, Exhibition: Swedish Art [12], 1916–1917.
  • Cary, Elisabeth L. 1927a. “Racial Genius: Revealed by Hammershoi and Other Painters in This Show.” The New York Times, November 13, X11.
  • Cary, Elisabeth L. 1927b. “Danish Art in the Leading Industries.” The New York Times, November 20, X11.
  • Cassidy, Donna M. 2005. Marsden Hartley: Race, Region, and Nation. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.
  • Cogdell, Christina. 2004. Eugenic Design: Streamlining America in the 1930s. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  • Conn, Steven. 1998. Museums and American Intellectual Life, 1876–1926. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
  • “Danish Art Wins High Praise: Exhibit at Park Will Last Two Months.” 1929. Los Angeles Times, January 3, A7.
  • “Danish National Exhibition: Los Angeles Museum.” 1929. Los Angeles Times, January 27, K5.
  • de Forest, Robert W. 1927. “The Opening of the Swedish Exhibition of Arts and Crafts.” Loan Exhibitions – Held – 1927, Swedish Contemporary Art–Publicity, 1926–27, L7806, OSR/MMA.
  • Eaton, Allen. 1932. Immigrant Gifts to American Life: Some Experiments in Appreciation of the Contributions of Our Foreign-Born Citizens to American Culture. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
  • “Emigrants’ Loyalties Described.” 1925. The Washington Post, October 18, E15.
  • Finley, David E. 1946. “The Significance of Museums in Modern Life.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 5 (4): 101–104.10.2307/3257320
  • Flint, Ralph. 1927. “Swedish Decorative Arts Shown.” The Christian Science Monitor, January 17, 6.
  • Fox, William Henry. 1927a. Letter to Samuel Sherer, January 31. BMA/ROD: WHF. File #1012, Exhibition: Paintings, Sculpture & Arts & Crafts of Denmark (Danish National Exhibition) [01]: Institutions, 11/1926–8/1927.
  • Fox, William Henry. 1927b. Letter to Robert D. Harshe, June 15. BMA/ROD: WHF. File #1012, Exhibition: Paintings, Sculpture & Arts & Crafts of Denmark (Danish National Exhibition) [01]: Institutions, 11/1926–8/1927.
  • Fox, William Henry [?]. 1927c. Opening remarks. BMA/ROD: WHF. File #1012, Exhibition: Paintings, Sculpture & Arts & Crafts of Denmark (Danish National Exhibition) [12], 1926–1927.
  • Goldin, Claudia. 1994. “The Political Economy of Immigration Restriction in the United States, 1890 to 1921.” In The Regulated Economy: A Historical Approach to Political Economy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. http://www.nber.org/chapters/c6577.10.7208/chicago/9780226301341.001.0001
  • Grant, Madison. 1916. The Passing of the Great Race; or The Racial Basis of European History. 4th rev. ed. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. https://archive.org/details/passingofgreatra00granuoft.
  • Grant, Madison. 1924. “The Racial Transformation of America.” The North American Review 219 (820): 349.
  • Griffey, Randall R. 2008. “Marsden Hartley’s Aryanism: Eugenics in a Finnish-Yankee Sauna.” American Art 22 (2): 64–84.10.1086/591175
  • Guldberg, Jørn. 2011. “‘Scandinavian Design’ as Discourse: The Exhibition Design in Scandinavia, 1954–1957.” Design Issues 27 (2): 41–58.10.1162/DESI_a_00076-Guldberg
  • Halsey, R. T. H. 1924. “Speech for the Opening of the American Wing.” Box 1, Folder 3, RTHH/WINT.
  • Harrison, Birge. 1909. Landscape Painting. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. https://archive.org/details/landscapepainti01harrgoog.
  • Harrison, Shelby M. 1932. “Foreword.” In Immigrant Gifts to American Life: Some Experiments in Appreciation of the Contributions of Our Foreign-Born Citizens to American Culture, edited by Allen H. Eaton, 9–12. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
  • Higham, John. 1955. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
  • Hijiya, James A. 1980. “Four Ways of Looking at a Philanthropist: A Study of Robert Weeks de Forest.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 124 (6): 404–418.
  • Kaplan, Wendy. 1982. “R. T. H. Halsey: An Ideology of Collecting American Decorative Arts.” Winterthur Portfolio 17 (1): 43–53.10.1086/wp.1982.17.issue-1
  • Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. 1998. Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Klein, Barbro. 2000. “The Moral Content of Tradition: Homecraft, Ethnology, and Swedish Life in the Twentieth Century.” Western Folklore 59 (2): 171–195.10.2307/1500158
  • Kline, Wendy. 2005. Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Laidlaw, Christine Wallace. 1988. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Modern Design: 1917–1929.” The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts 8: 88–103.10.2307/1503972
  • Larsen, Peter Nørgaard. 2014. “Hammershøi and Homelessness.” In Hammershøi and Europe, edited by Kasper Monrad, 181–196. New York: Prestel Verlag.
  • Lunning, Frederick. 1939. Letter to Preston Remington, July 17. P9710, Purchases–Swedish & Danish Art – from NY World’s Fair Exh. 1939–40, 1947, OSR/MMA.
  • Osborn, Henry Fairfield. 1921. ““Eugenics – The American and Norwegian Programs.” Science New Series 54 (1403): 482–484.
  • Pickens, Donald K. 1968. Eugenics and the Progressives. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.
  • Plumb, Helen. 1922. Letter to Henry Watson Kent, April 24. American Federation of Arts – American Handicraft Exhibition Correspondence, 1922, March–July 1922, L806, OSR/MMA.
  • Remington, Preston. 1940. “Contemporary Swedish and Danish Decorative Arts.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 35 (5): 103–106.10.2307/3256966
  • Remington, Preston. 1939. Letter to William J. Ivins, Jr., November 18. P9710, Purchases – Swedish & Danish Art – from NY World’s Fair Exh. 1939–40, 1947, OSR/MMA.
  • Robinson, Edward. 1927. Letter to Mr H. C. Stuart, January 12. Loan Exhibitions – Held – 1927, Swedish Contemporary Art – Miscellaneous Correspondence, 1926–27, L7806, OSR/MMA.
  • Rosenbaum, Julia B. 2006. Visions of Belonging: New England Art and the Making of American Identity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
  • Russell Sage Foundation. 2007. “Celebrating 100 Years of Social Science Research.” http://www.russellsage.org/sites/all/files/u137/Brief-History.pdf
  • Rydell, Robert, Christina Cogdell, and Mark Largent. 2009. “The Nazi Eugenics Exhibit in the United States, 1934–1943.” In Popular Eugenics: National Efficiency and American Mass Culture in the 1930s, edited by Susan Currell and Christina Cogdell, 359–384. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.
  • Seaton, Beverly. 1985. “A Pedigree for a New Century: The Colonial Experience in Popular Historical Novels, 1890 -1910.” In The Colonial Revival in America, edited by Alan Axelrod, 278–293. New York, NY: W. W. Norton for The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.
  • Selkurt, Claire. 1987. “New Classicism: Design of the 1920s in Denmark.” The Journal of Propaganda Arts, 4: 16–29.
  • Shales, Ezra. 2010. “Weaving the New into the Old: Textile Industries of New Jersey, 1916.” In Made in Newark: Cultivating Industrial Arts and Civic Identity in the Progressive Era, 189–220. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
  • Sherer, Samuel. 1927. Letter to William Henry Fox, January 27. BMA/ROD: WHF. File #102, Exhibition: Paintings, Sculpture & Arts & Crafts of Denmark (Danish National exhibition) [01]: Institutions, 11/1926–8/1927.
  • Spektorowski, Alberto, and Elisabet Mizrachi. 2004. “Eugenics and the Welfare State in Sweden: The Politics of Social Margins and the Idea of a Productive Society.” Journal of Contemporary History 39 (3): 333–352.
  • Stevens, MaryAnne. 2014. “Hammershøi and England.” In Hammershøi and Europe, edited by Kasper Monrad, 145–164. New York: Prestel Verlag.
  • Stoddard, Lothrop. 1920. The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. https://archive.org/details/risingtidecolor00stodgoog.
  • Storey, Walter Rendell. 1927. “Danish Ideas for American Decorators.” The New York Times, December 4, SM12.
  • “Swedish Art Exhibit Opened, With Prince William Attending.” 1927. The New York Herald, January 18, 13.
  • “Swedish Arts: Exhibition of Interesting Furnishings at the Metropolitan”. 1927. The New York Times, January 16, X11.
  • “Swedish Crafts Shown”. 1927. The New York Times, December 11, X12.
  • “Swedish Exhibition at Metropolitan”. 1927. The New York Times, January 16, E20.
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1924. American Industrial Art: An Exhibition of Current Manufactures Designed and Made in the United States, Gallery of Special Exhibitions, January 14 to March 2, 1924. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exhibition 484, Manufacturers and Designers 1924 – Misc. Correspondence, 1923–1924, OSR/MMA.
  • Trask, Jeffrey. 2012. Things American: Art Museums and Civic Culture in the Progressive Era. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.10.9783/9780812205657
  • Walker, Andrew J. 1999. “Critic, Curator, Collector: Christian Brinton and the Exhibition of National Modernism in America, 1910–1945.” PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania.
  • Weber, John A. 1926. Letter to Henry Davidson, July 22. Loan Exhibitions – Held – 1927, Swedish Contemporary Art – Miscellaneous Correspondence, 1926–1927, L7806, OSR/MMA.
  • “What is Loyalty? What is Patriotism?” 1925. The Christian Science Monitor, June 12: 20.
  • Whitney, William Dwight. 1914. The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, Vol. VI. New York: The Century Company.
  • Zeidel, Robert F. 2004. Immigrants, Progressives, and Exclusion Politics: The Dillingham Commission, 1900–1927. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.
  • Zetterlund, Christina. 2012. “Just Decoration? Ideology and Design in Early-Twentieth-Century Sweden.” In Scandinavian Design: Alternative Histories, edited by Kjetil Fallan, 103–116. New York: Berg.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.