I fear that twentieth-century art history is being distilled down to a short list of big names. Along with the big names come tag lines, movement labels, and summaries of ideas that are repeated over and over again until the work becomes just a prop in the legend of a historical artist. The artworks of the twentieth century deserve better than this. I chose only objects that had not been on display at the Hirshhorn for at least a quarter century. The artists I chose are not currently very famous (with one huge exception—I couldn’t resist). All of the work was made between 1956 and 1973, with the majority of the works being made in the 1960s.

The most remembered works of the 1960s are those that are classified as Pop, Minimalist, or conceptual. This is perfectly appropriate since it was at this time that the dominant method of artist training turned against expressionism and its show of, literally, drippy emotion. But many artists continued making handmade, personal, visionary, and intuitive pieces—some of which continue a tradition of surrealism into psychedelia. The works in this gallery offer a broader view.

There is a lot of my personal taste expressed here. I like the funk. I like the craft. I like the occasional eye-pop. I like work that seems as if the artist chose to make art as a personal response to large philosophical questions.