“In this captivating account, art historian Landau traces the oft-disregarded influence of Mexican culture and aesthetic sensibilities on American Modernism . . . Landau's nuanced approach teases out complex motivations such as love affairs, political sympathies, neuroses, friendships, grant money, and of course travels. What perhaps is most striking in this meticulously interwoven study are the chance meetings and happenstances that play such a profound role on their canvases and in their lives. This resistance to reductive proclamations is regrettably rare in art history. Landau's scholarship reanimates the complex intricacies of influence illuminating lives rather than resumes, to show the geopolitical and enigmatic impact Mexico as a place and culture held in the imagination of these American Modernists.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
~Publishers Weekly
"The cultural exchanges between the US and Mexico that resulted in many WPA-funded murals are well known. Also known is the interest that artists from both countries had in going back and roth to work. . . . What is not so well known is how Mexico, its art, and its artists served as a crucial component for the development of modernism in the US. Landau. . .provides readers with the important exchanges between both and their consequences for the work of US artists associated primarily with Abstract Expressionism. . . . Recommended.”—Choice
~Choice
“Given its expansive purview and its insightful and precise art historical analysis, Mexico and American Modernism is indispensable reading for anyone interested in a significant chapter in the history of artistic exchange between Mexico and the United States during the last century, as well as in many of the key transformations that defined modernist culture during the mid-twentieth-century.”—Luis M. Castañeda, Journal of Surrealism and the Americas
Won an Honorable Mention for the 2013 New England Book Festival given by the JM Northern Media Family of Festivals, in the Photography/Art Category.
~New England Book Festival, JM Northern Media
Received an Honorable Mention for the 2013 American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE), in the Art History & Criticism category.
~PROSE Awards, American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence
Won a Honorable Mention for the 2014 Los Angeles Book Festival in the Photography/Art Category.
~Los Angeles Book Festival, JM Northern Media LLC
