George Gershwin

In the early decades of the twentieth century, when waves of immigration and explosive urban growth transformed the face of America, George Gershwin emerged as a transcendent voice of modernism. His staccato-paced, syncopated rhythms helped define the Jazz Age on Broadway in the 1920s in such shows as Lady Be Good and Girl Crazy. At the height of the Great Depression, his “folk opera” Porgy and Bess attempted to catch the clash and blends of cultural “interfusions” that he saw as distinctively American. And he was part of the Hollywood scene during the golden age of the silver screen, notably completing—with his lyricist brother Ira—the score for The Goldwyn Follies just before his death in 1937, at age thirty-nine. Gershwin had become a centrifugal force in the lively arts in years marked by a search for a modern American identity.