1950s: Individuality, Realism, Surrealism
Claes Oldenburg was born in Sweden and only spent a few years in the 1950s in Chicago, but he sold his first works here, 5 pieces at the 57th Street Art Fair for $25.
Post-War art in Chicago was more figurative and less abstract than the New York fashion dictated, and was largely ignored by New York dealers and critics. Chicago artists rejected the abstract aesthetics of New York modernists, preferring strong surrealism, "following their own vision," and "savage political satire."
Read more about this topic: Visual Arts Of Chicago
Famous quotes containing the word surrealism:
“Cubism had been an analysis of the object and an attempt to put it before us in its totality; both as analysis and as synthesis, it was a criticism of appearance. Surrealism transmuted the object, and suddenly a canvas became an apparition: a new figuration, a real transfiguration.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)