,
8 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
1. In 1936 art historian & medievalist Meyer Schapiro wrote two articles skewering the racism of his colleagues who claimed that the root of style lay in the race of the artist examined. In one of these, “Race, Nationality, and Art,” he writes abt the danger of this position. 
2. It's not a perfect article, it certainly has flaws. But Schapiro knew that he had a responsibility as an art historian to take a stand. The full citation is: Meyer Schapiro, “Race, Nationality, and Art,” Art Front (1936): 10-12.
3. The article is not available on any widely accessible databases. I have uploaded it from a scanned microfilm to my academia edu page. I'll try to find a way to link to it elsewhere this evening of tomorrow. I don't want to drive traffic to my own page; it feels opportunistic.
4. I found a way to share the article publicly; click, scroll down: ge.tt/7i4EXOy2 . As I said, the piece is from 1936 & it's flawed. The point is that Schapiro articulates an incisive understanding of the issues we face today & he didn't separate academics from politics
5. The second article from 1936, to which I referred above is his review essay, "ThE New Viennese School." Unlike the Art Front piece, this wasn't written for a popular audience and is far more art-history inside baseball. But, to me, this is significant. What it shows is
6. That at one and the same time, Schapiro knew he had to attack racism both inside and outside the field to both specialist and non-specialist audiences. The photo in the previous tweet is from the review's reprint in the excellent volume, The Vienna School Reader (2000), but
7. You can also read it in its original form in Art Bulletin here. jstor.org/stable/3045631 I prefer the volume edited by Christopher Wood mitpress.mit.edu/books/vienna-s… bc of the amazing introduction, the other essays & translations, and the ample context and commentary it provides.
8. Oh yeah, from the Art Front piece, there's also this part, which feels esp relevant. He's mocking a critic (who was, I believe, from Kansas) for promoting the idea that one must be of a particular race or region in order to contribute to or comment on that region's culture.
