“A child could do that“, has probably been one of the most common utterances in response to modern art – and the attached review espouses that same view.
It was written in response to the New York Armory Show, which at that time was attracting a good deal of attention in the American press; that ground-breaking exhibit is remembered today for being the first public showing to introduce European-style modernism to the people (and artists) of New York (if not the nation).
Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973), as the co-creator of Cubism, was among those singled out for ridicule – as was Marcel Duchamp (1887 – 1968) for his painting, A Nude Descending the Staircase, which baffled the onlookers.
