Confronting Modernity: Art and Society in Louisiana examines how the conflicts and benefits of modernity's nationalizing influences were reflected and resisted by the state's artists in the first half of the twentieth century. In Louisiana, such change not only produced the turbulent politics of the Huey Long era but also provoked debate over new ideas on art and social roles for artists.

By using two of Louisiana's most prominent cultural figures of the era as lenses, Megraw reveals the state's complex relationship with modernity. Artist Ellsworth Woodward and writer Lyle Saxon...