RADIUM AGE ART (1933)

By: Joshua Glenn
December 4, 2024

Victor Brauner’s Le Ver luisant (1933)

A series of notes regarding proto sf-adjacent artwork created during the sf genre’s emergent Radium Age (1900–1935). Very much a work-in-progress. Curation and categorization by Josh Glenn, whose notes are rough-and-ready — and in some cases, no doubt, improperly attributed. Also see these series: RADIUM AGE TIMELINE and RADIUM AGE POETRY.

RADIUM AGE ART: 1900 | 1901 | 1902 | 1903 | 1904 | 1905 | 1906 | 1907 | 1908 | 1909 | 1910 | 1911 | 1912 | 1913 | 1914 | 1915 | 1916 | 1917 | 1918 | 1919 | 1920 | 1921 | 1922 | 1923 | 1924 | 1925 | 1926 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1931 | 1932 | 1933 | 1934 | 1935.

1933

Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany; Reichstag fire in Berlin; Goebbels named Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda; Hitler granted dictatorial powers; the first Nazi concentration camps; boycott of Jews in Germany begins; all books by non-Nazi and Jewish authors burned; modernist art in Germany suppressed.

Sixty thousands artists and authors leave Germany, including Kandinsky and Klee.

George Grosz emigrates from Nazi Germany to the United States.

Black Mountain College founded by John Andrew Rice.

John J. Heartfield’s “Göring: The Executioner of the Third Reich” (1933)

Also see: RADIUM AGE: 1933.

COSMIC AWE

Alexander Calder’s “The Planet” (1933)

DISENCHANTMENT

“Atelier Composition” by Man Ray, 1933

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1933 Joan Miro painting

Miró’s paintings based on collages of (advertisements for) household objects and machinery transform the objects into biomorphic figures. In this series of paintings we find a universe of primitive creatures at different stages of evolution.

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Picasso’s cover for the journal Minotaure (no. 1, 1933)

See below, for a use of this image as an sf book cover illustration.

1963 Penguin edition of Roy Lewis’s “The Evolution Man”

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Johannes Molzahn’s Der Turm der Männer (1933)

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Kandinsky’s “Gloomy Situation” (1933)

FAR-OUT MATHEMATICS

“Y= – x2 + bx + c rouge-vert” by Georges Vantongerloo (1933)

FOURTH DIMENSION

Joan Miró, “The Farm” (1921-1922). National Gallery of Art

UNKNOWABLE ALIENS

Ernst’s “Zoomorphic Couple” (1933)

Ernst’s painting was used as the cover illustration for a 1980s edition of the 1920s sf novel Giganti by Alfred Döblin.

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“Retrospective Bust of a Woman” by Salvador Dalí, 1933

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Victor Brauner’s Le Ver luisant (1933)

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Miro’s “Personage with Star” (1933)

Miro’s “Painting, March 13, 1933” (1933)

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Jean Arp’s “Head and Shell” (1933)

UNSEEN FORCES

Kandinsky’s “Compensation Rose” (1933)

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ALSO:

Carl Strüwe’s 1933 microscope photograph “Archetype of Individuality 1. Singular Frustules from Algae Colonies. From a Circular Preparation”

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MORE RADIUM AGE SCI FI ON HILOBROW: RADIUM AGE SERIES from THE MIT PRESS: In-depth info on each book in the series; a sneak peek at what’s coming in the months ahead; the secret identity of the series’ advisory panel; and more. | RADIUM AGE: TIMELINE: Notes on proto-sf publications and related events from 1900–1935. | RADIUM AGE POETRY: Proto-sf and science-related poetry from 1900–1935. | RADIUM AGE 100: A list (now somewhat outdated) of Josh’s 100 favorite proto-sf novels from the genre’s emergent Radium Age | SISTERS OF THE RADIUM AGE: A resource compiled by Lisa Yaszek.

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Radium Age SF, Sci-Fi

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