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"Gone With the Wind"
"Gone with the Wind" is a 1939 American epic historical romance film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel. It gained notoriety in 1940 at the box office. It was produced by David O. Selznick of Selznick International Pictures and directed by Victor Fleming. -
"For Whom the Bell Tolls"
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature. For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel published in 1940. -
Period: to
Art of the World: 1940's and 1950's
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"Number 12"
Mark Rothko born Markus Yakovlevich Rotkovich was an American painter of Russian Jewish descent. He is generally identified as an Abstract Expressionist. With Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, he is one of the most famous postwar American artists. Pictured here is Number 12, as he was known for calling his various block art style paintings simply by number. -
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico is a photograph by Ansel Adams, taken late in the afternoon on November 1, 1941, from a shoulder of U.S. Route 84. Sotheby's auctioned a print of this photograph for $609,600 Art historian H. W. Janson called this photo "a perfect marriage of straight and pure photography". Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist.. -
Mount Rushmore
Finished in 1941, The Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore near Keystone, SD. Sculpted by Danish-American Gutzon Borglum and his son, Lincoln, it features 60-foot sculptures of the heads of four United States presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln. It is a perfect example of fine art that is in its place a work of art, but removed from here it would never have the same aesthetic value. -
"White Christmas"
“White Christmas" is an Irving Berlin song reminiscing about an old-fashioned Christmas setting. According to the Guinness World Records, the version sung by Bing Crosby is the best-selling single of all time, with estimated sales in excess of 100 million copies worldwide. In writing it Berlin told his secretary, "Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I've ever written — heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody's ever written!" -
"Freedom From Fear"
Published in the March 13, 1943 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, "Freedom from Fear" is the last of the well-known "Four Freedoms" oil paintings produced by the American artist Norman Rockwell. The series was based on the four goals called the Four Freedoms enunciated by the President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt in his State of the Union Address delivered on January 6, 1941. -
Sculpture of FDR Bust
Selma Burke was an American sculptor. Her art is on display in Washington D.C and North Carolina. Burke was chosen to sculpt a portrait of then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Completed in 1944, the plaque was unveiled in September 1945 at the Recorder of Deeds Building in Washington, D.C., where it still hangs today. Some have suggested that the plaque may have served as John R. Sinnock's inspiration for his obverse design on the Roosevelt dime. -
"Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening"
"Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening (1944) is a surrealist painting by Salvador Dalí. A short, alternate title for the painting is Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee. It was painted in 1944, while Dalí and his wife, Gala, were living in America. In this “hand-painted dream photograph,” as Dalí generally called his paintings, we find a seascape of distant horizons and calm waters, perhaps Port Lligat, amidst which Gala is the subject of the scene. -
"The Glass Menagerie"
"The Glass Menagerie" is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams which premiered in Chicago 1944 and catapulted Williams from obscurity to fame. After a shaky start it was championed by Chicago critics whose enthusiasm helped build audiences so the producers could move the play to Broadway where it won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1945. It was Williams's first successful play; he went on to become one of America's most highly regarded playwrights. -
"Five Dolls"
"Five Dolls," 1948, is a chalk drawing by James Charles Castle who was an American artist born in Garden Valley, Idaho. Although Castle did not know about the art world outside of his small community, his work ran parallel to the development of 20th-century art history. His works have been collected by major institutions. The Philadelphia Museum of Art organized a retrospective of Castle's work which toured nationally in 2008 and 2009. -
"Number 7"
Jackson Pollock’s "Number 7" from 1950. Paul Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was well known for his unique style of drip painting. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety; he was a major artist of his generation. Regarded as reclusive, he had a volatile personality, and struggled with alcoholism for most of his life. -
"A Streetcae Named Desire"
"A Streetcar Named Desire" is a 1951 American drama film adaptation of Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 play of the same name. The Broadway production and cast was converted to film with only minor changes. True to the play, the film is both lyrical and gritty, with complex and contradictory characters. In 1999, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". -
"The Catcher in The Rye"
J. D. Salinger was an American writer. His book The Catcher in the Rye is a 1951 controversial novel originally published for adults, but it has since become popular with adolescents for its themes of teenage angst and alienation. The novel was included on Time 's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923; it was named by Modern Library as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2003, it was listed at #15 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. -
"Women III"
Women III was one of many paintings of women in abstract form. Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In the post-World War II era, de Kooning painted in a style that came to be referred to as Abstract expressionism or Action painting, and was part of a group of artists that came to be known as the New York School. -
"Walking to Church"
"Walking to Church" is a 1952 painting by the American painter Norman Rockwell, painted for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post 's April 4, 1953 issue. The painting depicts a woman and children walking to church through a city street Walking to Church had been on a long-term loan at the Norman Rockwell Museum before its 2013 sale. -
"Twelve Angry Men"
"Twelve Angry Men" is a play by Reginald Rose adapted from his 1954 teleplay of the same title for the CBS Studio One anthology television series. Staged in a 1960 London production, the Broadway debut came 40 years before the CBS aired the play on October 28, 2004, by the Roundabout Theatre Company at the American Airlines Theatre, where it ran for 328 performances. -
Bentley S1
1956 Bentley S1. Bentley was a division of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited which engineers, manufactures and distributes luxury automobiles and automobile parts worldwide. This Bentley, while it may never be on display in a fine art museum, is a true depiction of vehicle manufacturing of its time. Its bulky yet smoothed exterior is a sharp contrast to the luxury within. -
"Great Balls of Fire"
Jerry Lee Lewis is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and pianist, who is often known by his nickname of The Killer and is often viewed as "rock & roll's first great wild man." An early pioneer of rock and roll music, in 1956 Lewis made his first recordings at Sun Records. “Great Balls of Fire” sold 300,000 copies in the South, and was a huge hit in 1957. However, Lewis's rock and roll career faltered in the wake of his marriage to his 13-year-old cousin when he was 22. -
Guggenheim Museum
What better representation of fine art is there than an actual museum of fine art!? The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City was designed and occupied by Frank Lloyd Wright for 16 years (1943–1959) and is probably his most recognized masterpiece. The building rises as a warm beige spiral from its site on Fifth Avenue; its interior is similar to the inside of a seashell.
