Early 20th Century Avant-Garde: From Rebellion to Abstraction (Osher Online)
Osher Online - Fall | Available (Membership Required)
Journey into the vibrant world of early 20th century art and witness the birth of abstraction. This transformative period reshaped the cultural landscape, from the bold colors of Fauvism, the fractured forms of Cubism, to the dreamlike realms of Surrealism. Each session focuses on the movements’ leading artists including Matisse, Kandinsky, Picasso, Mondrian, Duchamp, and Dali. We will explore their aesthetic goals and the social and cultural currents that influenced them.
Course Trailer: Early 20th Century Avant-Garde: From Rebellion to Abstraction (Vimeo)
Note: Registration for the Summer Osher National Online courses will close on Sunday, September 20, 2026.
Osher Online™ courses are not recorded.
Lauren Weingarden
Lauren Weingarden is professor emerita of art history at Florida State University. Her research explores the intersections of literature and visual art in 19th-century culture, with a focus on the American architect Louis Sullivan and French figures such as Charles Baudelaire and Édouard Manet. She has published extensively on these subjects and developed an interdisciplinary, embodied aesthetic model that invites viewers to re-experience artists’ responses to modernity’s fragmentation and the fleeting qualities of nature, a perspective that shapes her teaching on Impressionism.