Paris 1900: The "American School" at the Universal Exposition

Abstract

By the turn of the century, Americans believed that they deserved their own of art - not simply because they produced quality work, but because that assumed they were predestined to inherit the mantle of Western civilization. In the wake of the Spanish-American War, the US had emerged as a genuine political superpower. The Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Paris of 1900 - the largest international cultural event in terms of attendance until the New York World's Fair of 1964 - was the perfect vehicle for Americans to promote all the richness of a vibrant culture. This work examines the campaign orchestrated by the federally-sponsored US Department of Fine Arts to prove the existence of a distinct American school of art, responding to earlier French criticism that art was primarily a reflection of the French style. At the 1900 Parisian fair, the McKinley administration's crusade involved installing paintings which exuded American character, such as images of virile men, wholesome women, pristine landscapes and technologically supreme cities. Paintings by still-powerful expatriates were also included: exhibiting only native themes would have smacked of a provincialism inconsistent with the administration's imperialist agenda. This campaign was successful; painters were lavished with medals, and critics enthusiastically sanctioned an Ecole Americaine, as it was to be known in the next century. Yet the legacy of this exposition has remained largely unnoticed. This book examines how the 1900 exposition functioned as a bridge to the 20th century, creating the conditions for the emergence of urban realism and modernism, as well as for New York to eventually displace Paris as the centre of the art world.