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Modernisms 1900-1980
Course: Modernisms 1900-1980 > Unit 9
Lesson 3: Postwar figurative art- Harlem 1948, Ralph Ellison, Gordon Parks and the photo essay
- Thelma Streat, Girl with Bird
- Charles Sebree, The Mystic
- Cars, highways, and isolation in Postwar America
- Identity and civil rights in 1960s America
- A mine disaster and those left behind: Ben Shahn's Miner's Wives
- Romare Bearden, Three Folk Musicians
- Brummett Echohawk, An Island of Redbuds on the Cimarron
- Ringgold, Dancing at the Louvre
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Cars, highways, and isolation in Postwar America
"There is no open road here." See learning resources here.
George Tooker, Highway, 1953, egg tempera on gesso hardboard, 58.1 x 45.4 cm (Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection, 1992.134 © Estate of George Tooker). Created by Beth Harris, Smarthistory, and Steven Zucker.
George Tooker, Highway, 1953, egg tempera on gesso hardboard, 58.1 x 45.4 cm (Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection, 1992.134 © Estate of George Tooker). Created by Beth Harris, Smarthistory, and Steven Zucker.
Video transcript
- [Steven] We're standing
in the storage room in the Terra Foundation
for American Art in Chicago looking at a painting
that I find menacing. It's by an artist named George
Tooker, called "Highway". It was painted in 1953 when transportation was
changing in the U.S. - [Peter] The painting
centers on the automobile. It is coming into prominence
in the late 40s and early 50s. More people are buying automobiles. As we see in the picture,
they're driving them as individuals, these aren't car pools, these are isolated
individuals behind the wheels of these stylized automobiles. - [Steven] And each of those individuals give me a sense of their isolation, that they're in these machines that become extensions
of their own frustration. - [Peter] I think we
associate the automobile with the ideal of the open road, but Tooker has done a great
job of shutting that down. Notice how our eyes can't
penetrate beyond the signage, beyond the cars themselves or
the blockades behind the cars. We can't see into the distance. There is no open road here. - [Steven] It's as if we're
seated in an automobile and we can't see over those tiger stripes, we can only just make out
the top of a brick building perhaps some oil tanks. - [Peter] Given that none of the figures are really looking at one another. The large standing
figure directing traffic appears to be halting the
cars coming towards us and also holding up his
red sign blocking our view of his head, but also blocking
our movement, presumably. He's the only individual standing outside and we are being addressed as viewers who are inside an automobile. - [Steven] I love the way the artist has transformed these cars
into almost snarling animals. You mentioned the red sign, the reflector reminds me
of the eye of an insect. So everything feels dehumanized. - [Peter] The reflective
surfaces of the man's red sign are technology that emerged
with the highway itself. Not only do these signs block
the flow of information, they give off another kind of information, bouncing back to a driver, the shine of his or her headlights. - [Steven] This was the post-war era. The United States had been instrumental in victories in Europe and the Pacific and Eisenhower had just come into office. The country was experiencing
real economic prosperity and the growth of the automobile
is an expression of that. - [Peter] The automobile becomes a symbol for post-war wealth,
prosperity and what historians have called an atomization
of American culture in that so many new technologies
that came out of the war whether it be improvements
to the automobile, to the transistor radio,
to the television, all were intended to
individualize viewers. It appealed to them on an individual as well as a mass basis. - [Steven] It's interesting
to me that the highway that we're on is elevated,
so the streets are below us and the pedestrians are below us. This is segregated. It's a reminder of what the
automobile made possible: the growth of the suburbs and a transition from urban to suburban life. - [Peter] While the highways
would give drivers new vistas, new ways of viewing the landscape
as they moved through it it also produced disjunctive
views, partial views. - And that couldn't be made more clear than the artist's decision
to completely obscure the face of the man
who's directing traffic. This painting, which is relatively small, is painted with such minute strokes that I can barely make out
the hand of the artist. - [Peter] Tooker painted
this in egg tempera. I think the choice of
medium is interesting. This is the moment of
abstract expressionism and this painting could not be further from an abstract expressionist canvas. - [Steven] Everything in
this painting is man made. There are no natural forms. The highway surface,
the signs, the clothing and even the unhealthy light in the sky. - [Peter] This is a dystopian view and in this moment in the early 1950s there's great promise in America. The United States
emerged from World War II as a true world power, so there was great hope for the future. But already, even in the
early part of the 1950s there were fears, there were anxieties about where this technological
culture would take us. These concerns, these
anxieties were generated by the ubiquity of
televisions, of advertisement, of periodicals and magazines, the television set,
the radio and so forth. These technologies had great
promise to bring us together as a nation, but they had
alarming potential to divide us. So I think it really speaks to a culture that is at a crossroads, looking back to a more
social face to face world and looking forward to a more
technologically driven society in which we communicate
through various media and we see the world around
us through the television, through the windshield of our automobile and across highway lanes.