What It Meant to Be Modern: Seattle Art at Mid-Century

What It Meant to Be Modern looks at the ways in which the work of artists in Seattle from 1932 to 1962 was intricately intertwined with the city and explores the diverse styles that arose from a complex and wide-ranging set of ideas about modern art. Well-known Northwest artists such as Mark Tobey, Kenneth Callahan, Leo Kenney, and Margaret Tomkins came to the fore in this period and influenced younger artists such as George Tsutakawa, Glen Alps, Paul Horiuchi, and Helmi Juvonen.

Essays present modern art in the context of Seattle's social and physical growth as a regional center, and reconsider the influence of European and American modernist movements, the appeal of certain Asian styles and methods, and the rigorous involvement with technique and craft that developed in the postwar period.