Modern Era Timeline

Art Deco - popular design movement from the 1920’s to 1930’s.
This movement affected all forms of art:
architecture
interior design
sculpture
furniture
industrial design
visual arts - fashion, clothing, jewelry, paintings, graphic arts, film.

August 18, 1920 - The 19th Amendment is ratified.
Granted women the right to vote.

August 8, 1925 Klansmen March:
40,000 KKK members march on Washington.

The Regionalist style of art was at its height from 1930 to 1935.
Famous artists: Grant Wood, Thomas Benton & John Steuart Curry
Featured reassuring images of the American heartland

March 4, 1933 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated.
His speech with its famous phrase, "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself".
Rallied the public and Congress to deal with great depression issues.

1939 World War II begins

August 6, 1945 - The United States drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

1947 - Jackie Robinson Joins the Dodgers, Becoming the First Black Baseball Player in the Major Leagues

Abstract Expressionism evolved through the work of each individual artist. Typically, an artist arrived at this free-wheeling style by the end of the 1940s and continued in the same manner to the end of their life. Unconventional application of paint, usually without a recognizable subject. Dripping, smearing, slathering, and flinging lots of paint on to the canvas (often an unprimed canvas) is another trait of this style of art.

1951 - First color TV introduced.

1955- Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus.

Pop Art was born in Britain in the mid 1950s. It has recognizable imagery, drawn from popular media and products. Using bright colors of flat images influenced by comic books and newspaper images.

Earth art, or Land art, a term coined by artist Robert Smithson coined the phrase "Earth Art" or "Land Art" in the 1960's. This type of art focused on land and natural elements. Artists rejected the traditional art object, expanding their definitions of sculpture, and sought to move art outside the conventional art world structure of galleries and museums.

1963 - Martin Luther King, Jr gives his "I have a dream" speech.

July 20, 1969 - Neil Armstrong became the first man to step foot on the moon.

1973 - Roe vs Wade legalizes abortion in the United States.

1979- Mother Teresa awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

The feminist art movement occurred in the 1970's. It refers to the efforts and accomplishments of feminists internationally to produce art that reflects women's lives and experiences.

1981- Assassination attempt on Unites States President Ronald Reagan.

1983- Sally Ride becomes the first United States woman in space.

Graffiti Art - This was a movement which achieved an enormous amount of success in New York in the 1980's. It was named after the spray-can vandalism common in most cities and most were associated with the New York subway system.
The two most successful figures of this movement were Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. However, they both died young and the style soon went out of fashion.

1995- MIllion Man March in Washington DC.

1996- Dolly the Sheep, first cloned mammal is born.

1992- Massurrealism is a form of art made popular in 1992 by American artist James Seehafer. An artist would mix the aesthetic styles and themes of surrealism and mass media. This form also included pop art.

September 11, 2001 - Two hijacked jetliners ram twin towers of World Trade Center in worst terrorist attack against U.S. A third hijacked plane flies into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashes in rural Pennsylvania. More than 3,000 people die in the attacks.

January 22, 2010 - An explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico sends millions of gallons of oil into the sea. The spill kills 11 and is the largest off-shore spill in U.S. history as well as one of the largest spills in world history.

David Kahm is the founder of the Thinkism Art Movement. It was founded in 2001. Thinkism invokes the viewer to think about different social issues, philosophical issues, political issues, environmental issues, psychological issues, religious issues, and other complex matters in a different light.

May 2015 - Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is sentenced to death for his responsibility in the Boston Marathon Bombing. The 2013 Boston Marathon bombing was the worst act of terrorism to take place in the U.S. since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

July 2015 - A gunman opens fire at a Navy and Marine recruiting center in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Four people were killed. Three other people, including a recruiter and police officer are injured. One of the injured men later dies of his wounds. The suspect, identified as Muhammad Youssef Abdulzeez, is shot and killed by police.

Conceptual Art (Graphic Design) - Some may feel as if computer artists are not equal to painters, but the core process stems from the same place: the imagination. Graphic Designers are inspired and motivated by emotions. Their imagination allows them to create new worlds and a new concept that is so detailed that is in hard to believe you are not looking into reality.