Hester Street (George Luks; 1905)

A colorful depiction of the Lower East Side that ignored the poorness of the area, but used cultural and ethnic sterotypes to make it realistic.

Eva Green (Robert Henri; 1907)

A portrait of a poor Black girl in New York City. Done without condescention and with dignity.

Hairdresser's Window (1907; John Sloan)

A painting of what Sloan saw on the way to Henri's studio, done in the hurried way of newspaper artists. Full of puns. A very modern piece.

Both Members of This Club (George Bellows; 1909)

A representation of the 'strenuous life' and the cult of masculinity. Also shows the racial friction there was going on at this time.

Movies, 5 Cents (John Sloan; 1907)

Movies were an entertainment that almost anyone could partake in. People in this scene are doing a number of things, including a woman looking at you, inviting you in. There are African Americans and Whites intermingling in the audience.

Chinese Restaurant (John Sloan; 1909)

Really, it should be a harlot playing with a cat. There are no actual Chinese people in there. It is a moment captured in time, similar to a photograph. About the visual, rather than the sensational.

Chinese Restaurant (1915; Max Weber)

Many moments seen all at once in a cubist collage style--synthetic cubism. Done with various points of view in various moments of time.

Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 (Marcel Duchamp; 1912)

The notorious piece from the Armory Show done in a cubist style. It's an abstraction, showing a machine-like human in multiple moments of time.

Portrait of a German Officer (Marsden Hartley; 1914)

An abstracted look at a German officer's clothes. It was made after Hartley's friend and lover died in the line of duty and little tidbits about him can be seen in the painting. It is collage cubism.

The Fountain (as photographed by Alfred Stieglitz; Marcel Duchamp under the pseudonym Richard Mutt; 1917)

If you don't know what this is by this point, you're hopeless.

The Critic (Arthur Dove; 1925)

A collage made to represent the shallowness of the traditional 'blind' critic (specifically here of the critic R. Cortissoz, who didn't like the Armory Show). He cleans up the dirt of the modernists with his vaccum and his body is made from critiques in newspapers.

Ici, c'est ici Stieglitz (Francis Picabia; 1915)

A symbolic portrait of Stieglitz. It was everything Stieglitz hated--mechanical and mocking his idealism. 

Radiator Building (Georgia O'Keeffe; 1927)

A symbolic portrait of Stieglitz--his name is in the red neon--done in the vulgar style that he did not think suitable to O'Keeffe's aesthetic.

The City of Ambition (Alfred Stieglitz; 1910)

A portrait of the New York skyline, done without showing people. Seems distant and mechanical. 

The Chocolate Grinder #2 (Marcel Duchamp; 1914)

The beginning of his mechanical, literal style.

Portrait d'une jeune fille américane dans l'état de nudité (Francis PIcabia; 1915)

A symbolic portrait that shows electricity as a metaphor for sexuality and inspiration from American advertisement.

In Advance of a Broken Arm (Marcel Duchamp; 1915)

Shows the French infatuation with the American industrial culture and their mass production.

Traveler's Folding Item (Marcel Duchamp; 1916)

A ready made. This one was apparently about feminization, masturbation and sex.

God (1918; the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven and Morton Schamberg)

A readymade by American, showing our propensity for fantastic plumbing and our worship of it.

Razor (Gerald Murphy; 1924)

Is it deep, is it not? Quintessentail American, or not? What was Murphy trying to sell here?

Ball Bearing (Fernand Léger; 1926)

A more abstract counterpoint to the American expatriates in Paris's versions of machinery.

Watch (Gerald Murphy; 1925)

Is it a metaphor or is it a watch?

Boat Deck (Gerald Murphy; 1923)

Larger than the French pieces around it.

Le Siphon (Fernand Léger; 1924)

Compare the influence of machines and advertisements to the French as opposed to the American interpretation.