American history through art on at British Museum

By Atholl Simpson

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - A new exhibition featuring works by artists Jackson Pollock and Edward Hopper will give visitors a chance to experience key periods of modern American history when it opens Wednesday at the British Museum.

"The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock" features images of American society and culture made during a period of great social and political change from the early 1900s to 1960.

"There is an enormous amount of vitality and energy in the exhibition," curator Stephen Coppel told Reuters. "It's about a period in American history where artists were socially engaged and were commenting on it."

The exhibition contains 147 prints by more than 70 artists, including John Sloan, Willem de Kooning and George Bellows covering such momentous eras as the Great Depression, World War Two, the emergence of the Jazz music scene, the rise of the skyscrapers and abstract art from the postwar period.

The political engagement of some artists after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 is shown through prints that have a patriotic, almost propaganda feel, according to Coppel.

The collection also includes prints of both urban and rural life, with night scenes of New York by Hopper and images of the American Midwest by Thomas Hart Benton.

The exhibition runs until September 7 2008. It will go on tour across Britain in 2009 to venues in Nottingham, Brighton and Manchester.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)