American Artists in Postwar Rome

Peter Benson Miller

ISBN 10: 135044636X / ISBN 13: 9781350446366

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, GB, 2025

About this Item

Drawing on unpublished archival sources, this book reconstitutes the experiences of a wide range of American artists, critics, and writers working in Rome in a charged environment of "Cold War cosmopolitanism."After the Second World War, American artists flocked to Rome in record numbers, even as the United States shored up Italy as a bulwark against the spread of Communism. While the market for modern art in Rome was less vigorous as those in Paris and New York, numerous galleries, artist-run spaces, and other institutions acted as important catalysts, making Rome an international artistic hub. The city attracted now canonical figures Lee Bontecou, Philip Guston, Robert Rauschenberg, Paul Thek, and Cy Twombly, along with less well-known artists, such as Eugene Berman, Gene Charlton, Carlyle Brown, Peter Chinni, William Congdon, Claire Falkenstein, Marcia Hafif, John Heliker, James Leong, Beverly Pepper, and Laura Ziegler, among many others.Rather than focusing on institutions and diplomatic relationships, the book centres the experience of artists, and also addresses Rome's gay subculture and the role of female artists during the period, eschewing traditional narratives of the male "cultural ambassador." Through case-study based investigation, Peter Benson Miller explores the reciprocal relationships between American modernist artists and Italian artists in postwar Rome, and reveals how these artists perceived Rome as less constrained by the demands of a national school, and as an alternative to New York. This congenial creative atmosphere yielded "new pictorial forms" developed in tandem with or absorbed from like-minded Italian artists, engaging the city and its multiple layers of history, from antiquity to the profound trauma inflicted by the recent conflict.The book also establishes the entangled social networks, galleries, exhibitions, and institutions sustaining their work and providing entrée into local artistic circles. Focusing on a series of specific exchanges, this study contributes to our understanding American modernism in an international context.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781350446366

Bibliographic Details

• Title: American Artists in Postwar Rome
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, GB
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 135044636X
• ISBN 13: 9781350446366
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 940 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Drawing on unpublished archival sources, this book reconstitutes the experiences of a wide range of American artists, critics, and writers working in Rome in a charged environment of “Cold War cosmopolitanism.”

After the Second World War, American artists flocked to Rome in record numbers, even as the United States shored up Italy as a bulwark against the spread of Communism. While the market for modern art in Rome was less vigorous as those in Paris and New York, numerous galleries, artist-run spaces, and other institutions acted as important catalysts, making Rome an international artistic hub. The city attracted now canonical figures Lee Bontecou, Philip Guston, Robert Rauschenberg, Paul Thek, and Cy Twombly, along with less well-known artists, such as Eugene Berman, Gene Charlton, Carlyle Brown, Peter Chinni, William Congdon, Claire Falkenstein, Marcia Hafif, John Heliker, James Leong, Beverly Pepper, and Laura Ziegler, among many others.

Rather than focusing on institutions and diplomatic relationships, the book centres the experience of artists, and also addresses Rome's gay subculture and the role of female artists during the period, eschewing traditional narratives of the male “cultural ambassador.” Through case-study based investigation, Peter Benson Miller explores the reciprocal relationships between American modernist artists and Italian artists in postwar Rome, and reveals how these artists perceived Rome as less constrained by the demands of a national school, and as an alternative to New York. This congenial creative atmosphere yielded “new pictorial forms” developed in tandem with or absorbed from like-minded Italian artists, engaging the city and its multiple layers of history, from antiquity to the profound trauma inflicted by the recent conflict.

The book also establishes the entangled social networks, galleries, exhibitions, and institutions sustaining their work and providing entrée into local artistic circles. Focusing on a series of specific exchanges, this study contributes to our understanding American modernism in an international context.

About the Authors

Peter Benson Miller is an independent art historian and curator based in Rome, Italy. From 2013 to 2019 he was the Andrew Heiskell Arts Director at the American Academy in Rome. His exhibitions have featured the work of Yto Barrada, Paolo Gioli, Charles Ray, Paul Thek, and Cy Twombly. He is the editor of Philip Guston: Roma (2010), and Go Figure! New Perspectives on Guston (2015).

Sharon Hecker is an art historian and curator specializing in modern and contemporary Italian art. She is the author of A Moment's Monument: Medardo Rosso and the International Origins of Modern Sculpture (2017), and co-editor of Postwar Italian Art History: Untying the Knot (2018) and Lead in Modern and Contemporary Art (2021). For her work on Italian art, Hecker has received fellowships from the Getty, Fulbright, and Mellon Foundations