Spiritual moderns : twentieth-century American artists and religion

Examines how and why religion matters in the history of modern American art.   Andy Warhol is one of the best-known American artists of the twentieth century.

He was also an observant Catholic who carried a rosary, went to mass regularly, kept a Bible by his bedside, and depicted religious subjects throughout his career.

Warhol was a spiritual modern: a modern artist who appropriated religious images, beliefs, and practices to create a distinctive style of American art.  Spiritual Moderns centers on four American artists who were both modern and religious.

Joseph Cornell, who showed with the Surrealists, was a member of the Church of Christ, Scientist.

Mark Tobey created pioneering works of Abstract Expressionism and was a follower of the Bahá’í Faith.

Agnes Pelton was a Symbolist painter who embraced metaphysical movements including New Thought, Theosophy, and Agni Yoga. And Warhol, a leading figure in Pop art, was a lifelong Catholic.

Working with biographical materials, social history, affect theory, and the tools of art history, Doss traces the linked subjects of art and religion and proposes a revised interpretation of American modernism.