Realism and Abstraction Artists in the twentieth century chose
two distinct ways to depict modernism and the excitement of
progress—realism and abstraction. Both are well represented in
the collection. The museum has the largest collection of New
Deal art and murals in the country. Images of jazz and street
life, farms and factories, workers and families captured a
changing America, from Thomas Hart Benton's Midwest to Jacob
Lawrence's Harlem. In Cape Cod Morning Edward Hopper captures
the post-war mood of anxiety in this stark, ambiguous painting.
John Sloan and Andrew Wyeth are among other realist painters in
the collection. Some American modernists found new ways of
depicting the spirit of their age. The dynamic rhythms of modern
life energized artists like Georgia O'Keeffe and Joseph Stella,
while artists such as Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline reveled
in the freedoms and frustrations of abstraction, and in turn
inspired the next generation of painters such as Richard
Diebenkorn and Kenneth Noland. Impo