1970: Mirrored Pasts, Predictable Futures 

1970 marked a cultural shift at the end of a decade of growing cynicism and anxiety. This exhibition presents work produced in that year as artists visibly responded to the progress and anxieties of the era. Many worked as commercial graphic designers, creating advertisements and product packaging while also sustaining an artistic practice. Some focused on the portrayal, documentation, and expression of emotions and feelings through abstraction. Others drew on popular mass culture, reproducing and critiquing it simultaneously.  

The positivity that came along with an economic boom following World War II in the US and Great Britain began to dissipate through the 1960s. Global conflict persisted, and the world found itself gripped by a Cold War stalemate between the Soviet Union and the United States. 

Immense technological advances provoked a space race, and art and design reflect an enthusiasm for “the atomic age.” Rising global mass media inundated the populace with colorful, punchy advertising aimed at selling new products and conveniences made possible by industrial innovations. At the same time, concerns grew about scientific innovation without guardrails or morality to guide it, as the threat of nuclear annihilation and ecological destruction loomed.  

Disillusionment about the progress of civil rights, skepticism toward foreign wars, growing awareness of damage to the environment, increasing political violence, and rising economic inflation triggered a mounting suspicion towards foundational institutions. People rose up in strikes and protests against war, labor conditions, environmental destruction, and civil rights—particularly for Black and Native American liberation. In the face of growing pessimism we also see great resilience and social consciousness. 

In many ways we see the experiences of 1970 mirrored in the current events and mood of our day. Looking back at the art of 1970 within the context of 2026, we ask whether our current reality was a predictable future, or whether we might learn the lessons of the past as we work to create a new and better world. 

This exhibition was curated by College of Wooster students Jack Ferrell ’28, Roman Mackenzie ’28, Riley Polomoscanik ’28, Iris Roth-Bamberg ’26, and Jacob Sabes ’28, assisted by Marianne Eileen Wardle, Director/Curator. Many thanks to Doug McGlumphy, Preparator, for exhibition design and installation, and Tracy Mathys, Administrative Coordinator, for program support and design for promotional materials.  

This exhibition and programs are made possible by the generous support of the Julia Shoolroy Halloran Endowed Fund.