1917 - Art

Art

Painting: The Card Game (La Partie de cartes) by Fernand Léger, who is at Paris on convalescent leave; Piano Lesson by Henri Matisse; Harlequin, Portrait of Olga, and Passeig de Colom by Pablo Picasso; Nude at the Fireplace by Pierre Bonnard; Forward by Marc Chagall; Amorous Procession by Francis Picabia; Crouching Female Nude by Amédéo Modigliani; The Embrace by Egon Schiele; Ladies in Crinoline by Wassily Kandinsky; John D. Rockefeller by John Singer Sargent; Light Coming on the Plains III and Evening Star III by Wisconsin-born New York painter Georgia O'Keeffe, 29; Allies Day, May 1917 and The Avenue in the Rain by Childe Hassam. Albert Pinkham Ryder dies at Elmhurst, N.Y., March 28 at age 70; Edgar Degas at Paris September 27 at age 83 (he has been blind since 1909).

Dutch painter Piet Mondrian founds the art review De Stijl with Theo van Doesburg.

The Independents exhibition that opens at New York's Grand Central Palace April 10 is the largest art show ever held in America—twice as large as the Armory Show 4 years ago. Financed by Vanderbilts, Whitneys, Archer M. Huntington, and other philanthropists, it displays 2,125 works by some 1,200 artists, but a "sculpture" entitled Fountain and signed "R. Mutt" is narrowly rejected just before the opening by the exhibition's committee (the New York Herald reveals that Marcel Duchamp submitted the urinal, either as a prank or a Dadaist gesture).

"I Want You," says Uncle Sam in a recruitment poster painted by New York illustrator James Montgomery Flagg, 40, who has used his own face as a model for the stern-visaged Uncle Sam (see communications, media, 1813; communications, media, 1852). U.S. Army recruitment officers distribute 4 million copies.

American World War I Recruitment Poster
James Montgomery Flagg's poster "I Want You" followed its British predecessor to recruit American war volunteers. (The Library of Congress.)

Sculpture: Man with Mandolin by Lithuanian-born French sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, 25; Bacchanal Russe (ballet figures) by Malvina Hoffman, who has applied to Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons to study dissection and anatomy. Auguste Rodin dies at Mendon November 17 at age 77.