You Gotta Know… 20 th Century Paintings!!! Grace Ronca

Guernica by Pablo Picaso

Year: 1937 Current Location: Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid, Spain) Media: Oil on canvas Reflects events of Spanish Civil War: bombing of the town Guernica, Spain Shows human, animal, and general suffering and chaos of wartime Cubism, gray/black/dark colors  reflects suffering and devastation Has worldwide acclaim, one of the most powerful anti-war paintings in history

Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 by Marcel Duchamp

Year: 1912 Current Location: Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, PA, USA) Media: Oil on canvas Famous Modernist classic Uses aspects of cubism (space division) and futurism (concept of motion) However, Cubists reject it for being too Futurist Attempts to show movement of woman walking down steps Was shown at the 1913 Armory Show in NYC, raised much controversy and critique

The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali

Year: 1931 Current Location: Museum of Modern Art (NYC, NY, USA) Media: Oil on canvas One of his most recognizable and famous works Clocks a common motif in his work Famous Surrealist painting Partner painting, The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, is in the Salvador Dali Museum (St. Petersburg, Florida)

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso

Year: 1907 Current Location: Museum of Modern Art (NYC, NY, USA) Media: Oil on canvas Primitivism: the women don’t look conventionally female, are painting abnormally Angular, broken qualities; mask-like faces Part Cubist, part Modernist, revolutionary for the time Raised a lot of controversy and critique but is generally studied deeply

Broadway Boogie-Woogie by Piet Mondrian

Year: Current Location: Museum of Modern Art (NYC, NY, USA) Media: Oil on canvas Inspired by Manhattan city layout and music Mondrian liked Lots of boxes, tile-like patterns, rectangles, that remind viewers of city grid Reflect the vibrancy and vitality of city life Colors allude to lights in city Rather abstract

Campbell's Soup Can by Andy Warhol

Year: 1962 Current Location: Museum of Modern Art (NYC, NY, USA) Media: Synthetic polymer paint on canvases Made of 32 canvases, each one having one type of Campbell’s soup Revolutionized Pop Art movement Parodies/reflects on brand names, celebrities, media Used printmaking, silk screening as opposed to traditional painting

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper

Year: 1942 Current Location: Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL, USA) Media: Oil on canvas One of the most recognizable paintings in American art Has inspired other pieces of art/literature Realistic approach highlights loneliness and isolation Hopper’s wife, Josephine, is the inspiration for the woman in the photo

I and the Village by Marc Chagall

Year: 1911 Current Location: Museum of Modern Art (NYC, NY, USA) Media: Oil on canvas Incorporates aspects of Cubism with soft, dreamlike images Reflects culture of Eastern European countries Uses motifs of countryside, peasant life

Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth

Year: 1948 Current Location: Museum of Modern Art (NYC, NY, USA) Media: Tempera on gessoed panel Tempera: style of painting that uses colored pigment mixed with water-soluble substances (such as egg yolk) Dries quickly, last for a long time (almost permanent) Inspiration for painting was Anna Christina Olson She ailed from a combination of polio and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, both impacted the wasting away of her body and inability to walk (paralysis) Wyeth got inspiration for the painting when he saw her crawling across the field to her house Realist style of painting

American Gothic by Grant Wood

Year: 1930 Current Location: Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL, USA) Media: Oil on beaverboard Famous but also widely parodied (Watch an SNL parody here)Watch an SNL parody here Models for the painting were Wood’s sister and their dentist Shows traditional gender roles in farming culture back in 19 th century Inspired by a Carpenter Gothic style house