Uptown-Downtown: American Art for a New Century, 1890-1920

FREE & OPEN TO ALL – The Ashcan School was America’s first modern art movement, capturing both the realities of urban life and the energy of a rapidly changing nation. Through scenes of everyday people, its artists helped define a uniquely American vision of modern identity and culture.

Presenter: Lori Mohr, Santa Barbara Museum of Art

In-person at Concord Hall, 1407 Chapala St., Santa Barbara, CA
*Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/@iwcinsantabarbara/streams

Words like ‘gritty’ and ‘underbelly’ usually describe the work of the Ashcan artists, which critics thought belonged in ‘ashcans’ for their images of immigrant life in lower Manhattan. Yet this is only part of their story: they also created scenes of middle-class leisure in a bustling city transformed by technology, reflecting the innumerable ways in which ordinary people would shape the national identity. The Ashcan School is now recognized as this country’s first modern art movement, a brand-new art that represented America’s shifting values. It was uniquely New York in its founding and uniquely American in its scope.

Lori Mohr has been a docent at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art for 20 years. With a master’s degree from UCLA in public health, Lori channeled her love of teaching—research, writing and public speaking—into a satisfying docent role in the Museum’s Community Speakers Program.