Consuming Surrealism in American Culture

Unlike accounts that focus on 1940s Surrealism in the U.S. as a point of departure for the ascendance of the New York School, this study contends that Surrealism has been integral to the development of American visual culture over the course of the twentieth century. Through analysis of Surrealism in the museum and the marketplace, Sandra Zalman tackles Surrealism’s multi-faceted circulation as both elite and popular, and argues that Surrealism worked as a powerful agitator to disrupt dominant ideas of modern art.