The Socit Anonyme

A visual feast of modern European and American art from one of the twentieth centurys most extraordinary collections This beautifully illustrated book highlights the unique history of The Socit Anonyme, Inc., an organization founded in 1920 by the artists Katherine S. Dreier (18771952), Marcel Duchamp (18871968), and Man Ray (18901976). As Americas first experimental museum for modern art, the Socit Anonyme provided a means for artists, rather than historians, to chronicle the rise of modernism. Led by Dreier and Duchamp, the group eventually assembled a collection of more than one thousand artworks, which it presented to the public in a variety of innovative programs, publications, and exhibitions. The incredible collection of the Socit Anonyme now belongs to the Yale University Art Gallery, a gift from the Socit and Dreier. It features the work of more than one hundred artists, many of whom are among the centurys most renownedincluding Jean Arp, Duchamp, Max Ernst, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, El Lissitzky, Piet Mondrian, Man Ray, Kurt Schwitters, and Joseph Stellaas well as works by lesser-known artists whose contributions to modernism are substantial. With new archival information, including personal correspondence between Dreier and the artists whose work she assembled, a host of previously unpublished images, essays by leading scholars, and an interview with artists Robert and Sylvia Mangold about the contemporary significance of this collection, this fascinating book is essential to our understanding of the reception and interpretation of modernism in America. Published in association with the Yale University Art Gallery Exhibition Schedule: Dallas Museum of Art (June 10, 2007 September 16, 2007) Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville (October 26, 2007 February 3, 2008) Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (April 23 August 13, 2006) The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (October 14, 2006January 21, 2007) Yale University Art Gallery (2011)