New (world) order.

Pollock, de Kooning, Hopper: Creative Tourist ponders a new exhibition at the Whitworth that shows off the American greats

A printmaking exhibition that opens at the Whitworth this week is nothing if not timely: it reflects global economic crisis, war in distant lands and intense political conflict back on home soil. Sound familiar? It may well strike a chord, but what’s interesting about The American Scene is that it’s not about the here and now – but about the US during the last century.

The first half of the twentieth century was a period when America was flooded by European émigrés – who brought about the landmark Armory Show of 1913, the Jazz Age, the rise of Modernism, the tortured birth of Abstract Expressionism and the reactionary beginnings of Pop. All this, it should be noted, while living through two world wars and the Great Depression. So this was a time when old rules were ripped up and artists tried, time and again, to create something new – something that expressed both the hope and the violence of those tumultuous decades. A time, in other words, when America not only caught up with European art and culture, it sprinted ahead with head-turning speed.

‘Our exhibition contains images of the American city as the emblem of the modern world,’ says curator David Morris, who has worked closely with the British Museum to bring the show to Manchester. ‘The prints on display here capture the dynamism of that time, the idea of progress, but they also reflect the inequalities and social problems that arose as a result of rapid urbanisation.’

With 106 prints by 60 artists on display, The American Scene offers much more than just a snapshot of the development of US printmaking. It is the first such show in 25 years and, although some of the prints are almost 100 years old, the issues that their creators grappled with, and the methods they chose to express them, remain fresh. ‘The screen prints from the 1930s use flat blocks of colour you’d perhaps otherwise associate with Pop Art,’ explains Morris. ‘They look strikingly modern.’

The American Scene, then, is a fine opener for Manchester’s Autumn season. It offers a chance to dig deep into the British Museum’s prints collection (one of the finest outside the US) and uncover some truly great works by the likes of Edward Hopper, Josef Albers, Louise Bourgeois, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock – artists and artworks that are as relevant today as they ever were.

The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock, Whitworth Art Gallery. Until 13 Dec. Free.

Image credit: The Fifth Column, Hugo Gellert, 1943

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