The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia will present the exhibition “Icon of Modernism: Representing the Brooklyn Bridge, 1883–1950,” from Sept. 17 to Dec. 11, 2016.

“Icon of Modernism” includes 42 paintings, watercolors, works on paper and photographs that all take the Brooklyn Bridge as a subject. Sarah Kate Gillespie, the museum’s curator of American art, chose works of art created between the completion of the bridge (1883) and the mid-20th century to show how artistic representations of it changed over time, even as it symbolized modernity for different generations. From American impressionism to abstract expressionism, the details of how artists presented the bridge changed, but its ability to stand for the modern era remained. 

“When it opened, the Brooklyn Bridge was a phenomenon, and many commemorative objects featuring the bridge were produced. Other museums have shown the wide variety of these objects, but we decided to focus on the aesthetic portion alone,” explains Gillespie, who was tasked with organizing the exhibition when the museum hired her in 2014.

Although it may seem strange for Athens, Georgia, to host an exhibition on a structure so tied to New York City, descendants of John A. Roebling, who designed the bridge, lived in Athens for many years. Portraits of Margaret Allison and Ferdinand William Roebling have been on view in the museum’s permanent collection galleries. In addition, the museum’s collection overlaps strongly with the span of time the exhibition covers; an exhibition of related works from that collection will be on view September 17 – December 31 in an adjoining gallery. 

Artists with work in “Icon of Modernism” include painters Joseph Stella, John Marin, Yun Gee, Georgia O’Keeffe and Reginald Marsh and photographers Edward Steichen, Walker Evans, Weegee and Consuelo Kanaga. Four works in the exhibition come from the museum’s own collection, but the remainder are on loan from museums, corporate collections and private collections across the country. An illustrated catalogue published by the museum will accompany “Icon of Modernism,” with scholarly essays by Gillespie, Janice Simon (Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor of Art History in the Lamar Dodd School of Art, UGA), Meredith Ward and Kimberly Orcutt.

Related events include 90 Carlton: Autumn, the museum’s quarterly reception (free for members of the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art, $5 non-members) on September 16; public tours with Gillespie on September 21 and October 12 at 2 p.m; Student Night on September 29; a film series beginning October 6; a gallery talk by Gillespie and Stephan Durham, associate professor in the UGA College of Engineering, on October 13 at 5:30 p.m.; the museum’s biennial Emerging Scholars Symposium, co-organized with UGA’s Association of Graduate Art Students, October 21 and 22, with Richard Haw as the keynote speaker on October 21; and Family Day November 5 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. as part of UGA’s Spotlight on the Arts festival. All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise indicated.