Make It Modern

A fascinating journey through Western art from the 1910s to the 1960s, charting how artists wrestled with the headlong changes of a turbulent and conflict-ridden world

From the chaos of the First World War to the ravages of the Second, from the Great Depression to the rise of consumer culture, artists we call “modern” faced the challenge of responding imaginatively to utterly new circumstances of life. Original thought, startling artistic techniques, and new attitudes to experimentation were required to produce exceptional and timely work.

Make It Modern guides the reader through the art of the modern world. Works of celebrated artists, from Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky to Frida Kahlo, Jackson Pollock, and Yayoi Kusama, alongside a panoply of undervalued or less-known figures, populate this decade-by-decade narrative. Make It Modern tells an unforgettable story of how art was changed forever.

 

“"With admirable clarity and insight, Brandon Taylor takes his readers through the restless, revolutionary impulses of modernist art in all its daring complexity."--Richard Cork, art historian, critic, curator and broadcaster "Wise, lucid and often revelatory, this is a masterful survey of modern art. It should be essential reading for any student of the subject."--James Fox, author of The World According to Colour”

"Brandon Taylor's new survey of Modern Art, packed with information and splendidly illustrated, is essential reading for all art-lovers, highlighting key trends from 1910s to 1960s." — Brian Cooper, Church Times

“With admirable clarity and insight, Brandon Taylor takes his readers through the restless, revolutionary impulses of modernist art in all its daring complexity.”—Richard Cork, art historian, critic, curator and broadcaster

“Wise, lucid and often revelatory, this is a masterful survey of modern art. It should be essential reading for any student of the subject.”—James Fox, author of The World According to Colour

Brandon Taylor is professor emeritus of history of art, University of Southampton, and visiting tutor in history and theory of art, Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford.

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