The publication of the second volume of American Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, which focuses on American Modernism, is currently underway. Funded in part by the Henry Luce Foundation, the new volume serves as a companion piece to its predecessor, American Arts at the Art Institute of Chicago: From Colonial Times to World War I. The book features an introductory essay about the history of the collection that concentrates on the major collectors, donors, and curators responsible for its growth, followed by entries for over 200 objects, including paintings and sculptures, watercolors and drawings, and decorative arts. These works will be contained in chronological sections featuring the Stieglitz circle and Georgia O’Keeffe; the self-identities and nationalisms of the 1920s and 1930s; social realism and surrealism; and abstraction, the war years, and the New York School.

The American modernist collections at the Art Institute are world-renowned, but have never been published in a comprehensive manner. Such masterpieces as Peter Blume’s The Rock (1944–48), Stuart Davis’s Ready to Wear (1955), Charles Demuth’s And the Home of the Brave (1931), Marsden Hartley’s Movements (1913/15), Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks (1942), Gaston Lachaise’s Woman (Elevation) (1912-15/1927), Georgia O’Keeffe’s Black Cross, New Mexico (1929), Charles Sheeler’s The Artist Looks at Nature (1943), and Grant Wood’s American Gothic (1930) are destination objects for museum-goers, but they have never been considered in the context of the entire collection.

Under the direction of Judith A. Barter, Field-McCormick Chair of American Art, the staff of the Department of American Art, Sarah Kelly, Denise Mahoney, Ellen Roberts, and Brandon Ruud, are working to fully document the collection of American modernist works. This publication of 20th-century American painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts will provide a scholarly basis for understanding the collection and for further dissemination of information to the audience for American art in Chicago and beyond.