What was—or is—American modernism? Who gets to be called a modern American artist? Art historians have been grappling with these questions with ever more intensity in recent years. The answers strike to the core of what it meant to be an American in the twentieth century, as well as what it continues to mean in the twenty-first. This talk—along with the upcoming exhibition of the same name—examines how the collection at CFAM can be used to reframe, expand, and reinterpret the epic of American modernism.