The New Spirit

American Art in the Armory Show, 1913

Gail Stavitsky, Laurette E. McCarthy, and Charles H. Duncan

The International Exhibition of Modern Art, better known as the Armory Show, consisted of more than 1,300 works of art by American and European artists. During its original run in New York, Chicago, and Boston from mid-February to mid-May of 1913 and in the subsequent scholarship on the topic, most attention has centered on the avant-garde European artists, particularly Marcel Duchamp, Constantin Brancusi, and Henri Matisse, even though art by Americans comprised two-thirds of the works on view in this legendary show. The New Spirit is the first exhibit and catalogue to focus primarily on the American art in the Armory Show. While works by such renowned artists as Edward Hopper, Robert Henri, John Marin, Charles Sheeler, and George Bellows are included, The New Spirit highlights paintings, sculpture, watercolors, and prints by artists like Leon Kroll, Middleton Manigault, D. Putnam Brinley, Jerome Myers, Allen Tucker, Jonas Lie, E. Ambrose Webster, Chester Beach, and George Grey Barnard—talented individuals who remain at the periphery of mainstream American art history.