A third great writer of the 1920s was William Faulkner.
Faulkner wrote about the special problems and ways of life in the American south. His books explored the emotional tension in a society still suffering from the loss of the Civil War 60 years before. Some of Faulkner's best books were The Sound and The Fury, As I Lay Dying and Absalom, Absalom. Like Hemingway, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
MAN: The 1920s also produced the greatest writer of theatre plays in American
history, Eugene O'Neill.
O'Neill was an Irish-American with a dark and violent view of human nature. His plays used new theatrical methods and ways of presenting ideas. But they carried an emotional power never before seen in the American theatre. Some of his best- known plays were Mourning Becomes Electra, The Iceman Cometh and A Long Day's Journey into Night.
A number of American writers also produced great poetry during the 1920s. Probably the most famous work was The Waste Land, a poem of sadness by the writer T. S. Eliot.
T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot (1888–1965) in the 1920s (left) and later life (right), “The Waste
Land” was published in 1922. Eliot received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.
WOMAN: There also were important changes in American painting during the 1920s.
Actually, American art had been changing in important ways since the beginning of the century.
In 1908, a group of New York artists arranged a historic show. These artists tried to show real life in their paintings. They painted new kinds of subjects. For example, George Bellows painted many emotional and realistic pictures of the sport of boxing. His work, and the painting of other realistic artists, became known as the "Ash Can" school of art.
Another important group of modern artists was led by the great photographer Alfred Stieglitz. This group held a major art show in 1913 in New York, Chicago, and Boston. The show presented modern art from Europe. Americans got their first chance to see the work of such painters as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.
The show caused a huge public debate in the United States. Traditional art critics accused the organizers of the show of trying to overthrow Christianity and American values. Former president Theodore Roosevelt and others denounced* the new art as a threat to the country.
However, many young American painters and art lovers did not agree. They became very interested in the new art styles from Europe. They studied them closely.
Soon, Charles Demuth, Joseph Stella, and other American painters began to produce excellent art in the new Cubist style. John Marin painted beautiful views of sea coasts in New York and Maine. And such artists as Max Weber and Georgia O'Keeffe painted in styles that seemed to come more from their own imagination than from reality.
As with writing, the work of many of these serious modern painters only became popular many years later.
MAN: The greatest American designer of buildings during the 1920s was Frank
Lloyd Wright. Wright believed that architects should design a building to fit its location, not to copy some ancient style. He used local materials in new ways. Wright invented many imaginative methods to combine useful building design with natural beauty.
WOMAN: Writers and artists now look back at the roaring 1920s as an extremely
important period that gave birth to many new styles and ideas.
Hemingway's style of writing continues to influence American writers. Many painters say the period marked the real birth of modern American art. And architecture students in the United States and other countries now study the buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright.
The changes in American society caused many of these artists much sadness and pain in their personal lives. But their expression of protest and rich imagination produced a body of work that has grown in influence with the passing years.