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| Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors | |
|---|---|
| Name | Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors |
| Formation | 1940 |
| Type | Arts organization |
| Headquarters | New York City |
| Region | United States |
| Fields | Painting, Sculpture |
Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors The Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors is an American arts organization founded in 1940 that fostered modernist practices among visual artists in New York City and beyond. It interacted with institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Guggenheim Museum while members engaged with exhibitions at venues including Brooklyn Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Smithsonian Institution. Its activities intersected with artists and movements linked to figures like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, and institutions such as the Works Progress Administration, Federal Art Project, atelier schools, Cooper Union, and New York School.
The Federation emerged in an era shaped by events including the Great Depression, the New Deal (United States), and the transatlantic migrations prompted by World War II, with early meetings drawing artists connected to Alfred Stieglitz, Peggy Guggenheim, John Graham (art teacher), Julian Levy Gallery, Arturo Schomburg, and networks around Greenwich Village. Founders and early affiliates associated with studios near Union Square, Manhattan, Chelsea, Manhattan, and SoHo, Manhattan sought alternatives to juried exhibitions at venues like the National Academy of Design and Salmagundi Club, while reacting to controversies such as censorship in shows at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences and debates sparked by exhibitions at Ames Gallery and Reuben Gallery. During the Cold War period the Federation navigated cultural politics alongside organizations such as the Congress for Cultural Freedom and curators including Alfred H. Barr Jr. and Thomas H. Hess. Over decades its trajectory overlapped with events like the Armory Show centenary retrospectives, the rise of Abstract Expressionism, the expansion of programs at the National Gallery of Art, and exhibitions at regional centers such as the Detroit Institute of Arts and Walker Art Center.
The Federation articulated goals resonant with statements by peers at Artists Equity Association, Society of Independent Artists, Art Students League of New York, National Academy of Design, and College Art Association, emphasizing artist-driven exhibition opportunities, advocacy for fair exhibition practices, and defense of artistic freedom as debated in cases like those involving Edward Hopper, Diego Rivera, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, and galleries such as Galerie Maeght. Activities included organizing juried and non-juried exhibitions, panels with critics from The New York Times, Artforum, and ARTnews, cooperative studio exchanges with Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, and supporting sales through collaborations with dealers like Pietro Cavallini Gallery, Leo Castelli Gallery, and Gimpel Fils. The Federation participated in discussions about cultural policy with agencies such as the National Endowment for the Arts, foundations like the Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation, and international exchanges linking to events like the Venice Biennale and the São Paulo Art Biennial.
Membership drew painters and sculptors in dialogue with artists associated with Stuart Davis, Charles Sheeler, Ben Shahn, Thomas Hart Benton, Arshile Gorky, Isamu Noguchi, and Louise Nevelson, and contemporaries active in collectives from Black Mountain College to Tate Gallery affiliates. Organizational structure included elected officers, committees mirroring models used by American Federation of Arts, International Sculpture Center, and boards with trustees linked to universities such as Columbia University, New York University, Yale University, Princeton University, and Harvard University. Membership categories paralleled those in groups like Artists’ Union, with juries convened resembling procedures at the Royal Academy of Arts and coordination with regional chapters akin to San Francisco Art Association and Cleveland Museum of Art outreach programs.
The Federation mounted exhibitions in venues comparable to programs at Guild Hall (East Hampton), Bennington Museum, Crocker Art Museum, Minnesota Museum of American Art, and collaborated on traveling shows to institutions such as the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Its catalogs and newsletters followed precedents set by publications from Studio International, Art in America, Artforum, and independent presses such as Phaidon Press, featuring essays by critics like Clement Greenberg, Harold Rosenberg, Robert Hughes, Irving Sandler, and poets/readers from The Paris Review. The Federation also issued statements on exhibition policy comparable to manifestos published by Der Blaue Reiter, De Stijl, Surrealist Manifesto, and collaborated with curators from Peggy Guggenheim Collection and programs at School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Individuals associated with the Federation included painters and sculptors in networks intersecting with Grace Hartigan, Hans Hofmann, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Philip Guston, Helen Frankenthaler, Adolph Gottlieb, Tony Smith, George Segal, Richard Pousette-Dart, Paul Jenkins, Joan Mitchell, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Alberto Giacometti, Constantin Brâncuși, Isabel Bishop, Reginald Marsh, Milton Avery, Georgia O'Keeffe, Ansel Adams, and patrons connected to Dorothy Norman and Alfred Stieglitz Collection. Leadership roles were often held by artists and advocates who also engaged with institutions like National Endowment for the Arts, New York Public Library, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and foundations such as Carnegie Corporation.
The Federation’s legacy can be traced through its impact on exhibition practices at institutions including Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, and regional museums like the High Museum of Art and Phoenix Art Museum, its role in debates involving critics such as Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg, and its contribution to artist rights dialogues paralleled by Artists Equity Association and American Abstract Artists. The organization influenced generations connected to art schools like Cooper Union, Art Students League of New York, School of Visual Arts, Parsons School of Design, and inspired archival research at repositories such as the Smithsonian Institution Archives and university special collections at Yale University Library and Princeton University Library. Its history is discussed alongside movements and exhibitions from the Armory Show to postwar international biennials, maintaining relevance in studies of modernism recorded by authors in Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and journals like The Burlington Magazine and Art Bulletin.
Category:Arts organizations in the United States