Deck 30: Modernism in the United States and Mexico, 1900 to 1945

Question 1

What uniquely American style combined Synthetic Cubism with a fascination with the presence of machinery in contemporary life?

A) Mechanism
B) Precisionism
C) Futurism
D) Social Realism

Answer 1

B

Question 2

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Arthur Dove's nonobjective painting Nature Symbolized No. 2 seeks to capture the essence of what aspect of the natural world?

A) Moss-covered stones
B) Snow-covered mountains
C) Running streams
D) Sprouting vegetation

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Which of the following artists shared Stieglitz's goal of positioning photography as an art form with the same status as painting and sculpture?

A) Edward Hopper
B) Marcel Duchamp
C) Georgia O'Keeffe
D) Edward Weston

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Whose highly personal work is often described as autobiographical because of her unflinching self-portrait portrayals, which give the viewer a glimpse into her suffering?

A) Georgia O'Keeffe
B) Frida Kahlo
C) Dorothea Lange
D) Margaret Bourke-White

Question 5

How did viewers react to Dorothea Lange's photograph entitled Migrant Mother, Nipomo Valley ?

A) They criticized and disparaged the woman.
B) They accused the photographer of being a Marxist.
C) They refused to attend Lange's exhibition of photos.
D) They rushed to send food to hungry workers.

Question 6

Which member of The Eight painted scenes from the lives of the underclass of New York City, such as Sixth Avenue and Thirtieth Street ?

A) Robert Henri
B) Jacob Riis
C) Arthur Dove
D) John Sloan

Question 7

Portrait of a German Officer was painted as an elegy to a dead lover by which artist?

A) Charles Demuth
B) Edward Hopper
C) Marsden Hartley
D) Aaron Douglas

Question 8

What event ended the relative isolation of the American art scene and inspired the development of American modernist art?

A) Founding of the Museum of Modern Art
B) The Mexican Revolution
C) 1926 Exhibit at Brooklyn Museum
D) The Armory Show

Question 9

The most derided work at the Armory Show, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 , is by which artist?

A) Vassily Kandinsky
B) Marcel Duchamp
C) Pablo Picasso
D) Arthur Dove

Question 10

What subject was the focus of the work of the American movement known initially as The Eight and then as the Ash Can School?

A) The mundane and repetitive activity of farm life
B) The innovation and dynamism of new machines
C) The bleak and seedy aspects of city life
D) Photographic documentation of the Great Depression

Question 11

Which leading patron and collector of modernist American art ultimately founded a museum to display her own collection?

A) Peggy Guggenheim
B) Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
C) Isabella Stewart Gardner
D) Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

Question 12

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Aaron Douglas's mural From Slavery through Reconstruction combines forms and motifs from African art with what European modernist style?

A) Fauvism
B) Futurism
C) Synthetic Cubism
D) Surrealism

Question 13

What is the intended message of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks ?

A) The seediness of modern-day neighborhoods
B) The energizing and lively rhythm of city life
C) The cosmopolitan atmosphere of big city life
D) The pervasive loneliness of modern humans

Question 14

Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton focused his attention on which of the following subjects?

A) The farming landscape of Iowa
B) Times Square, New York
C) The social history of Missouri
D) The history of Mexico

Question 15

The Chrysler Building by William van Alen displays iconic elements of which style?

A) Art Nouveau
B) Cubist
C) Art Deco
D) Arts and Crafts

Question 16

What is the subject of Charles Demuth's My Egypt ?

A) Ironworks
B) Coal mine
C) Stone quarry
D) Grain elevator

Question 17

Which of the following artists created large-scale, kinetic sculptures based on principles of engineering?

A) Henry Moore
B) Alexander Calder
C) Piet Mondrian
D) Man Ray

Question 18

Which artist who created Cadeau , a work of art that could be described as "a wickedly funny gift"?

A) Alexander Calder
B) Frida Kahlo
C) Man Ray
D) Man Ray

Question 19

Which of the following artists created a modern art style that combined Synthetic Cubism with jazz tempos and the energy of American cities?

A) Charles Demuth
B) Marsden Hartley
C) Stuart Davis
D) Georgia O'Keeffe

Question 20

Which photographer was hired by the US Resettlement Administration to document the deplorable living conditions of the rural poor?

A) Alfred Stieglitz
B) Charles Sheeler
C) Dorothea Lange
D) Edward Weston

Question 21

What is Frida Kahlo referring to in her painting The Two Fridas ?

A) Her sexuality
B) Her ancestry
C) Her education
D) Her travels

Question 22

What element of the landscape did Wright deliberately incorporate in his design for the Kaufmann House?

A) Cave
B) Waterfall
C) Pond
D) Hill

Question 23

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Which photographer sought to startle viewers with images of everyday objects with surprising elements added, such as this Cadeau ( Gift )?

A) Dorothea Lange
B) Margaret Bourke-White
C) Alexander Calder
D) Man Ray

Question 24

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Grant Wood's painting American Gothic is an example of which painting style?

A) Precisionism
B) Futurism
C) Regionalism
D) Faurism

Question 25

What unusual material was innovatively adapted to architectural use for decorative elements of the Chrysler Building in New York?

A) Cast iron
B) Stainless steel
C) Aluminum
D) Glass

Question 26

In what US city is José Clemente Orozco's 24-panel series Epic of American Civilization located?

A) Austin, TX
B) Sacramento, CA
C) Hanover, NH
D) Billings, MT

Question 27

What was the name of the art gallery founded by Alfred Stieglitz to promote the avant-garde and exhibit the latest in American and European art and photography?

A) Whitney Gallery
B) 291
C) Art of This Century
D) Group f/64

Question 28

Thomas Hart Benton created a series of murals detailing the history of which US state?

A) Louisiana
B) New York
C) Arizona
D) Missouri

Question 29

Which photographer gained fame for images of Depression-era public works projects as well as serving as a US Air Force photographer during World War II?

A) Dorothea Lange
B) Edward Weston
C) Margaret Bourke-White
D) Alfred Stieglitz

Question 30

For what setting was Calder's mobile entitled Lobster Trap and Fish Tail commissioned?

A) Guggenheim Museum
B) Whitney Museum of American Art
C) Museum of Modern Art
D) Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Question 31

What style of the 1920s and 1930s had a universal application, to works ranging from buildings to jewelry and garments?

A) Arts and Crafts
B) Precisionism
C) Art Deco
D) Cubism

Question 32

How did Jacob Lawrence ensure consistency among the sixty paintings of his series Migration of the Negro ?

A) Rhythmic arrangements of shapes
B) Consistent palette of colors
C) They were not consistent.
D) Consistent palette of colors and rhythmic arrangements of shapes

Question 33

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Who is the Precisionist painter of New York, Night ?

A) Charles Demuth
B) Edward Hopper
C) Georgia O'Keeffe
D) Paul Strand

Question 34

What was Frank Lloyd Wright's term for the homes he designed such as the Robie House, which had an open ground plan and long, ground-hugging lines?

A) Train house
B) Dugout house
C) Prairie house
D) Crafts house

Question 35

Which painter believed in the importance of practicing "straight photography" rather than using techniques that add effects to a photo?

A) Edward Weston
B) Alfred Stieglitz
C) Dorothea Lange
D) Man Ray

Question 36

Highly controlled still-life photographs exploring surface curves and characteristics were the specialty of which photographer?

A) Alfred Stieglitz
B) Dorothea Lange
C) Man Ray
D) Edward Weston

Question 37

The image of the Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange was taken in which US state?

A) Texas
B) California
C) New Mexico
D) Arizona

Question 38

Who were the two leading painters of the Harlem Renaissance?

A) Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston
B) Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith
C) Aaron Douglas and Jacob Lawrence
D) James Van Der Zee and Aaron Douglas

Question 39

American Regionalist painters focused primarily on subjects located in which area of the United States?

A) West Coast
B) Midwest
C) New England
D) Deep South

Question 40

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Which Marxist painter created a series of murals including Ancient Mexico and this detail of History of Mexico ?

A) José Clemente Orozco
B) Frida Kahlo
C) David Alfaro Siqueiros
D) Diego Rivera

Question 41

Which Depression-era artist created a painting cycle based on newspaper photographs of the trial of two Italian anarchists in Massachusetts?

A) Edward Hopper
B) Ben Shahn
C) George Grosz
D) Alfred Barr

Question 42

Which of the following is NOT a modernist abstract work?

A) Hartley, Portrait of a German Officer
B) Wood, American Gothic
C) Davis, Hot Still-Scape for Six Colors-7th Avenue Style
D) Calder, Lobster Trap and Fish Tail

Question 43

What element did Wright make the central feature of his prairie houses designed and built in Chicago?

A) Pond
B) Balcony
C) Fireplace
D) Light well

Question 44

What sculptural form, developed by Alexander Calder, has its parts so carefully balanced that they move with the slightest current of air?

A) Kinetics
B) Mobile
C) Assemblage
D) Readymade

Question 45

José Clemente Orozco's mural series painted shortly after the Mexican Revolution had which group as its central heroic focus?

A) European conquistadors
B) Indigenous peoples
C) Christian religious officials
D) Ancient Aztec gods

Question 46

The smaller, less-expensive dwellings that Wright designed for lower-income people were given what name?

A) Field houses
B) Usonian houses
C) Freedom houses
D) Strip houses

Question 47

In O'Keeffe's New York, Night , what element of the image serves to embody the energy of the city?

A) Clear starry sky with moonlight
B) Swiftly walking people
C) Imposing mass of the buildings
D) Lighted windows and streetlights

Question 48

In Grant Wood's iconic American Gothic , what feature in the image invokes religious piety?

A) Crucifix worn by woman
B) Lancet window of house
C) Pitchfork held by man
D) Red geraniums

Question 49

The politically motivated artists who created large Mexican mural pictorial programs were promoted of which system of thought?

A) Capitalism
B) Futurism
C) Nationalism
D) Marxism

Question 50

Which artist painted a 60-panel series of paintings entitled The Migration of the Negro that was intended to document discrimination against African Americans?

A) Alain Locke
B) Prentice H. Polk
C) Aaron Douglas
D) Jacob Lawrence