The Shift In American Art By Thomas Doss

This book examines the shift in American art from regionalism in the 1930’s to abstract expressionism in the 1940’s. Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollack are the main two artist that Doss focuses on in her book because they are each the principal artists from these two eras of art. Doss’s main goal in this book is to uncover the reasons for the shift of success from the story telling regionalism of Benton’s era to the nonobjective, abstract expressionism and to use these reasons to explain the shift’s contemporary cultural significance. Doss clearly expresses her thesis that the major reason for this extreme shift in art is the political culture of the time and the social reforms that each artist hoped to produce with their art. Her book
hopes to express to the artist of this generation who are committed to social reform that looking back at Benton and Pollack can give wisdom on how to be a part of this society, but not submit to it.