The art of the American dream

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the United States confronted for the first time the possibility that the American experiment might have failed. It was during this period that the phrase “the American dream” was first coined and became a catchphrase for debating the promises and failures of the American project. American artists responded to questions about a national or collective sense of identity with works that raised questions about history, politics, social realism and allegory, about the nation’s mythological past, its anxious present and its hopes for the future.

In this talk, Professor Sarah Churchwell examines the political, cultural and aesthetic contexts to which these artists were responding, with particular attention to the work of Grant Wood, Edward Hopper, Reginald Marsh and Georgia O’Keeffe, as well as some of the films of the period and their relation to the American art of the Great Depression.

Professor Sarah Churchwell is professorial fellow in American literature and chair of public understanding of the humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Booking required. Unclaimed seats will be released at 2.25pm that day.