Catalogue for the International Exhibition of Modern Art assembled by the Société Anonyme. Brooklyn Museum, November 19th, 1926 to January 1st, 1927.

The purpose of this seminal exhibition was to promote Modern Art to the greater public and educate young artists of the contemporary happenings. The exhibition featured works by 106 artists representing 23 countries, including Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Constantin Branucsi, Georgia O’Keeffe, Alfred Stieglitz, Joan Miro, Paul Klee, Joseph Stella, Georges Braque, Max Ernst, Utugawa Kuniyoshi, among numerous others. Curated by Katherine Dreier, the president of the Société Anonyme, the exhibition surveyed different movements of experimental practice and could be viewed as a global approach to Modernism. Interestingly, it was one of the first major exhibitions since the 1913 Armory Show to equally incorporate photography alongside painting and sculpture, with no bias in sight. Dreier hung photographic works by Alfred Stieglitz, Edmund Kesting, Man Ray, and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.

The introduction of the catalog comprises statements by William Henry Fox, the curator in chief at the Brooklyn Museum, and Katherine Dreier, the president of the Société Anonyme. Fox’s intro states that the Brooklyn Museum does not take sides “either as advocate or opponent” to Modern Art, but has responsibility to the public, who must “see in order to judge, as is shown by the history of art.” Dreier discusses the vigor and strength of the new movement, which is only “growing in volume” despite “enemies...proclaiming from the house-tops.” In a closing passage, she highlights the Société’s motive to inspire new artists to work freely writing that, “If any young talent has been safeguarded through this exhibition from misdirected efforts and has been helped to remain true to himself and not feel the need to compromise with the public, that does not yet understand, we feel that we have served our purpose.”

In a December 27th press release the museum referred to the heightened attendance of 48,000 as “unusual” and that the exhibition would be extended until January 10th. Following display at the Brooklyn Museum, the exhibition traveled to the Albright Knox in Buffalo, New York, where it was shown from February 25th to March 20th, 1927.

This copy includes the often-lost insert including the "List of Pictures catalogued but not hung for lack of space" and the "List of pictures hung but not cataloged."