160:, and by promoting print collecting in terms of upward mobility—in the same way as buying Listerine ("The Dentifrice of the Rich," according to one ad campaign), owning modern art raised one's life socially. AAA's success led them to open a 30,000-square-foot gallery at 711 Fifth Avenue in 1939 where they featured paintings and sculpture. In 1944, AAA had 107 artists under contract and sold 62,374 lithographs, for a net income of $ 1 million per month.
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at work, but corporate headquarters were not interested in "Negroes doing what looked like old-time slave work." They demanded pictures that showed not realism but idealism, leading Benton to complain that "Every time a patron dictates to an artist what is to be done, he doesn't get any art, he just
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an art-for-business commission like those he had offered his artists in 1934, Pollock turned him down.) In its press releases and articles, AAA talked about exploring "new frontiers," "new trends"—and made no mention of the $ 5 mail-order line and the artists who had helped it succeed twenty years
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The
Regionalists by and large were in favor of businesses and advertising using their works, believing that fine art could raise the consciousness of business. They did not fully realize how art figured into corporate branding and advertising in the minds of corporate planners, or consider that
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his first lithographs in 1934, the
American economy was still limping towards recovery from the Depression; high-priced art was an impossible luxury for most people and the old galleries that had always supported artists were finding it difficult to broker their work. AAA was thus "an agent of
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Lewenthal marketed his prints as educational resources, as a patriotic choice, and as "art for the people" rather than "art for the wealthy." In
January 1935 AAA issued its first mail-order print catalogue; mail-order print sales will continue for the next forty-nine years. He also placed
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had resulted in hundreds of thousands of prints, but these were distributed free (mostly to schools) thus the artists made no profits from print sales. Lewenthal's idea was to combine quality, affordability, and profit. In 1934 he met with several well-known
American artists, including
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AAA was a victim of its own success in some ways. Having been so successful, it was adopted as a model by other companies that began to compete with AAA—marketing fabric, for example, as "etching by the yard" or commissioning artists to do designs for lines of china or wallpaper.
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I knew the regionalists were popular because their names were in the art magazines all the time. But they weren't popular enough, and they weren't making any money. Why, when I first went to Tom Benton's New York apartment he was living in utter squalor. I more or less rescued
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art made up the bulk of their lines; particularly popular were the works of Benton, Curry and Wood. These artists avoided gritty realism and created positive images of an idealized, strong, capable
America, a viewpoint which accorded well with the political environment of the
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tenant. His is a field of practical creativity and every
American room can become a showcase for his genius.". Now, rather than bringing modern art to the masses, AAA was bringing mass consumer commodities into the world of art.
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porcelain, fabric, and housewares such as ashtrays, playing cards, and lamp shades as vehicles for work in abstract and other modern styles. By the mid-1950s, Lewenthal was quoted as saying, "Today's artist is a designer, not an
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to "create pictorial links between pineapple juice and tropical romance". This convergence of art, business, and consumerism was the perfect environment for
Lewenthal's new Associated American Artists enterprise.
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marketed its "American Modern" line of place settings as "art translated into dinnerware." In 1958 Lewenthal took over management of Rust Craft
Greeting Cards, handling all AAA's decorative arts lines, while
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By the fall of 1934 Lewenthal had contracts with fifty department stores to carry his "signed originals by
America's great artists."
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that could produce art in the
Regionalist style. This appropriation of the regionalist/representational style culminated in the
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their art might be used to inspire confidence in a product. They were soon to learn. Benton's original works for R.J. Reynolds'
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The increasing association of regionalist and representational art with commercialism and advertising (and in some eyes, with
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being relatively cheap to produce, Lewenthal decided to focus on that medium. Before the 1930s, fine-art prints were usually
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In a strange reversal of its "market to the masses" philosophy, many early AAA prints which sold originally for $ 5 go to
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gets a poor commercial job." Increasingly, rather than deal with AAA and its artists, companies built in-house
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Art for Every Home: An Illustrated Index of Associated American Artists Prints, Ceramics, and Textile Designs
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for the anxiety and weakness pervasive during and just after the Depression. Typical of this was Benton's
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304:. "Catering to Consumerism: Associated American Artists and the Marketing of Modern Art, 1934-1958."
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361:. "Catering to Consumerism: Associated American Artists and the Marketing of Modern Art, 1934-1958."
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128:, despite the fact that signing with AAA usually meant being fired from their higher-end gallery.
439:. Manhattan, Kansas: Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University. p. 15.
330:. Manhattan, Kansas: Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University. p. 11.
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but he quickly expanded into artists' agent, working as a publicist for British artist
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took responsibility for the New York gallery and the fine art market.
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Seaton, Elizabeth G.; Myers, Jane; Windisch, Gail, eds. (2015).
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Seaton, Elizabeth G.; Myers, Jane; Windisch, Gail, eds. (2015).
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Seaton, Elizabeth G.; Myers, Jane; Windisch, Gail, eds. (2015).
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Vol. 26, No. 2/3. (Summer - Autumn, 1991), pp. 143–167.
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economic salvation" for numerous American artists including
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Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists 1934-2000
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Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists 1934-2000
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Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists 1934-2000
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earlier. Thomas Hart Benton resigned from AAA in 1946.
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Art for the masses: Associated American Artists Prints
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art after World War II. When AAA opened galleries in
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42:. Lewenthal's first job was as a reporter for the
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515:at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
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38:Associated American Artists was begun by
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302:Doss, Erika
271:Sylvan Cole
257:Ivory Tower
182:therapeutic
110:Peggy Bacon
572:Categories
545:73°58′31″W
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313:References
232:surrealist
126:Grant Wood
34:Beginnings
455:909251636
413:909251636
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218:Post-WWII
167:appeal.
284:See also
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178:New Deal
173:regional
165:populist
56:and the
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236:Chicago
224:fascism
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