The Modern Eye explores the origins and development of early 20th-century modernism in America through the lens of the major exhibitions that introduced this art to the general public. Author Kristina Wilson shows how modern artists and curators sought to relate high art to mass culture in order to make it accessible to more people, and successfully popularized modern painting and design during the interwar years.

A major contribution to our understanding of the origins of modernism, this book captures the vibrant diversity that the term "modern art" meant at this time. The chapters examine exhibitions held in New York in the 1920s and 1930s, including those organized by Alfred Stieglitz, the Little Review, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art. In examining the marketing of modernism, Wilson reveals how these exhibitions attempted to stage an intersection between art and everyday life, and how they taught viewers to look at, and care about, modern art.