modern art

American  

noun

1. art that was produced in the late 1860s through the 1970s and that rejected traditionally accepted forms and emphasized individual experimentation and sensibility.

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Etymology

Origin of modern art

First recorded in 1800–10, for an earlier sense

Example Sentences

Hofmann personally experienced the early modern art movements of Fauvism and Cubism in Paris, which gave his teaching a present-at-the-creation credibility.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 23, 2026

He lives in a company-owned apartment full of dark, polished surfaces and bad modern art; she lives in a rundown apartment furnished with termites.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 18, 2026

Maybe modern art doesn’t lead toward utopia, but there’s an important place in our world for nonconformists.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 18, 2026

Abdoulaye N was previously a guard at the Center Pompidou in Paris, an arts centre containing Europe's largest museum of modern art.

From BBC • Nov. 6, 2025

The ground there looked like a really awful piece of modern art, thickly spattered with white, brown, and green chicken poop.

From "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan