A Voice of Moderation: Roosevelt on the Armory Show

Abstract: In 1913, an "International Exhibition of Modern Art," eventually seen by a half million people, rocked the American art world. First mounted at New York City's 69th Regiment Armory, it became known as the Armory Show, and its self-consciously "modern" approach challenged the dominance of conservative, staid styles of European art. Two-thirds of the 1,600 works were by Americans, and the Europeans whose works were exhibited--Picasso, Matisse, Seurat, Van Gogh, Gaughin, and Duchamp among them--were far from the conservatives that Americans were used to. Most critics took extreme positions, either praising or damning the show. In his "A Layman's View of an Art Exhibition," published in the March 29, 1913, issue of Outlook , Theodore Roosevelt took a moderate approach, lauding the unconventional spirit of the Armory Show while casually dismissing the work of such "European extremists" as the Cubists and the Futurists.

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