For Tomorrow They Will Not Recognize Us: The American Reception of Soviet Leftist Art

In this thesis, I take a historiographic approach to the reception of Soviet leftist art of the early 20th century in the United States. I explore the ways that Soviet movements like Suprematism and Constructivism were appropriated as a vehicle for political meaning by American institutions and the means by which those Soviet artists, artworks, and legacies were framed. The decades covered by my thesis were characterized by global warfare and high-stakes diplomacy, beginning with the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution in 1917 through the Second World War, into the Cold War and the Vietnam War. The thesis is divided into three sections roughly aligning with these time periods and each anchored by an exhibition that typifies the feelings and scholarship on the Soviet leftist art in the United States. The exhibitions I examine are Cubism and Abstract Art (1936), Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner (1948), and Primary Structures (1966).

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Art History

Grantor

University of Houston

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Asakura, Sophie Charlotte Kiyoe

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Zalman, Sandra

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Golubev, Alexey V.
• Harren, Natilee

• Soviet
• Leftist
• Reception
• Russian
• Avant-garde
• Cold War
• Museum of Modern Art
• MoMA
• Barr
• Greenberg
• Naum Gabo
• Malevich
• Tatlin
• Cubism and Abstract Art
• Primary Structures
• Barbara Rose
• Carl Andre
• Robert Morris
• Camilla Gray
• Constructivism
• Suprematism

Statement dc:rights

• The author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10657/14580

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uh-ir.tdl.org:10657/14580