Modern & Contemporary American Art

NOMA's collection of American Modern and Contemporary art ranges from the Impressionism of Mary Cassatt to the modernism of Georgia O'Keeffe, from the Abstract Expressionism of Jackson Pollock to the dynamic and varied work of contemporary artists. Also noteworthy are the Museum's Photography Collection, Prints and Drawings Collection, and the planned Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden which encompass many 20th Century treasures.

Among the visionary and generous donors who have contributed fine art to NOMA's 20th Century collections, in addition to the Besthoff Family, are Mrs. P. Roussel Norman, the late Muriel Bultman Francis, the late Victor K. Kiam, and the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation.

Georgia O'Keeffe developed a highly individualistic style in her paintings of sprawling desert landscapes and unfolding flowers. Her work is distinguished by her ability to distill the essence of natural forms through the use of simplification and soft color. Marsden Hartley experimented with the range of European art movements from Post-Impressionism to Cubism to German Expressionism. In The Ice Hole, Maine, Hartley uses a stitch-like brushstroke influenced by the Post-Impressionist Swiss painter, Giovanni Segantini.

Ralston Crawford was a notable participant in the development of American modernism. His work, based upon observation, emphasized the two-dimensionality of the canvas and demonstrated the balance, indeed tension, between abstraction and representation. Jackson Pollock was the most famous Abstract Expressionist or "action painter" of his generation, exerting a tremendous influence in the New York art world. Pollock is known for drizzling and flinging different kinds of paint, the work of art being created through the action of his own body movements.

Joseph Cornell is an enigmatic figure in 20th Century art. He lived an almost hermetic life but created miniature, magical assemblages inspired by Surrealist concepts of poetry. Radar Astronomy is one of Cornell's several boxes on the theme of space.

Milton Avery, who began his career as a commercial artist, is known for both the style and highly personal content of his work. He is considered, along with O'Keeffe and Hartley, to have forged an indigenous modern American artistic idiom. Robert Gordy was one of the Louisiana artists who achieved national prominence during the 1970s. Many of his works feature abstracted female figures in a two-dimensional, decorative landscape integrating positive and negative space in an overall pattern.