Surrealism and American Literature

FAIN: FA-11306-76

Dickran Tashjian
Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY 10021-2764)

To study the relationship between European Surrealism and the American avant-garde from 1925 to 1950, considering both painters and writers in a cultural and historical framework with aesthetic analyses of their work. Study will define Surrealism through the writings of Andre Breton Maral Duchamp and Nicolas Calas — Europeans who represented Surrealism to American artists. Grantee will consider how American artists perceived and understood this European movement and reconciled their aesthetic radicalism with the social political issues raised by the crises of the Great Depression.