History of art since 1940 when many artists of the European avant-garde moved to New York focusing on the artists' lives and how they intersected with broader cultural issues.

New York in the forties -- A dialog with Europe -- Existentialism comes to the fore -- The new European masters of the late forties -- Some international tendencies of the fifties -- The beat generation -- The European vanguard of the later fifties -- The landscape of signs : American pop art 1960 to 1965 -- In the nature of materials -- Politics and the postmodern -- Surviving the corporate culture of America in the seventies -- Painting at the end of the seventies -- The eighties till now -- To say the things that are one's own.