by John Davis and Michael Leja edited by Francesca Rose
Terra Foundation for American Art, 2019 Paper: 978-0-932171-68-9 | eISBN: 978-0-932171-74-0 Library of Congress Classification N6505.A76 2020 Dewey Decimal Classification 709.73
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK Art of the United States is a landmark volume that presents three centuries of US art through a broad array of historical texts, including writings by artists, critics, patrons, literary figures, and other commentators. Combining a wide-ranging selection of texts with high-quality reproductions of artworks, it offers a resource for the study and understanding of the visual arts of the United States. With contextual essays, explanatory headnotes, a chronology of US historical landmarks, maps, and full-color illustrations of key artworks, the volume will appeal to national and international audiences ranging from undergraduates and museum visitors to art historians and other scholars. Texts by a range of artists and cultural figures—including John Adams, Thomas Cole, Frederick Douglass, Mary Cassatt, Edward Hopper, Clement Greenberg, and Cindy Sherman—are grouped according to historical era alongside additional featured artists.
A sourcebook of unprecedented breadth and depth, Art of the United States brings together multiple voices throughout the ages to provide a framework for learning and critical thinking on US art.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY John Davis is the provost and under secretary for museums, education, and research at the Smithsonian Institution and the author or coauthor of numerous catalogs and books, including, with Sarah Burns, the comprehensive volume American Art to 1900. Michael Leja is the James and Nan Wagner Farquhar Professor of History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of numerous catalogs and books, including Reframing Abstract Expressionism: Subjectivity and Painting in the 1940s and Looking Askance: Skepticism and American Art from Eakins to Duchamp. Francesca Rose is the program director for publications at the Terra Foundation for American Art.
REVIEWS
"Art of the United States, 1750-2000: Primary Sources is an affordable and well-organized anthology that can serve as an introduction to primary sources for undergraduate students studying art history as well as casual readers interested in American art. It is well-suited for general academic collections as well as fine art libraries that support undergraduate study and could easily serve as a supplementary course-assigned text for an introductory American art course."
— Art Libraries Society of North America
"Created with non–English speakers in mind, Art of the United States, 1750–2000 is an inspiring and unique source book. The primary texts—which include letters, artists’ writings, interviews, diaries, and critical texts—provide unique, and sometimes personal, insights about the art and culture of the US during the particular time frame. Together these sources create across-cultural framework for learning about US art in a way that will appeal to anyone interested in US history and art. Recommended."
— Choice
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapters
1750–1830: Building Patronage and Institutions
John Adams, Charles Willson Peale, John Trumbull, John James Audubon…
1830–1850: Landscape, Democracy, Race
Thomas Cole, Samuel F. B. Morse, George Catlin, Frederick Douglass…
1850–1870: The Civil War and its Aftermath
Asher B. Durand, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Hosmer, Oliver Wendell Holmes…
4. 1870–1885: The Gilded Age
J. Alden Weir, Henry James, Thomas Eakins, Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer…
5. 1885–1900: A New Internationalism
Kenyon Cox, James McNeill, Whistler, Mary Cassatt, Booker T. Washington…
6. 1900–1918: Progressivism and Modernism
Lewis Hine, Robert Henri, Theodore Roosevelt, Marcel Duchamp…
7. 1918–1939: Prosperity and Depression
Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Hopper, Langston Hughes, Romare Bearden...
8. 1940–1960: War and Cold War, Anxiety and Affluence
Norman Rockwell, Jackson Pollock, Clement Greenberg, Louise Bourgeois…
9. 1960–1980: Political Polarization, Counterculture and Reaction
Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Smithson, Judy Chicago, Adrian Piper…
10. 1980–2000: Culture Wars and Postmodernism
Cindy Sherman, Maya Lin, Hans Haacke, Jean-Michel Basquiat…
by John Davis and Michael Leja edited by Francesca Rose
Terra Foundation for American Art, 2019 Paper: 978-0-932171-68-9 eISBN: 978-0-932171-74-0
Art of the United States is a landmark volume that presents three centuries of US art through a broad array of historical texts, including writings by artists, critics, patrons, literary figures, and other commentators. Combining a wide-ranging selection of texts with high-quality reproductions of artworks, it offers a resource for the study and understanding of the visual arts of the United States. With contextual essays, explanatory headnotes, a chronology of US historical landmarks, maps, and full-color illustrations of key artworks, the volume will appeal to national and international audiences ranging from undergraduates and museum visitors to art historians and other scholars. Texts by a range of artists and cultural figures—including John Adams, Thomas Cole, Frederick Douglass, Mary Cassatt, Edward Hopper, Clement Greenberg, and Cindy Sherman—are grouped according to historical era alongside additional featured artists.
A sourcebook of unprecedented breadth and depth, Art of the United States brings together multiple voices throughout the ages to provide a framework for learning and critical thinking on US art.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY John Davis is the provost and under secretary for museums, education, and research at the Smithsonian Institution and the author or coauthor of numerous catalogs and books, including, with Sarah Burns, the comprehensive volume American Art to 1900. Michael Leja is the James and Nan Wagner Farquhar Professor of History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of numerous catalogs and books, including Reframing Abstract Expressionism: Subjectivity and Painting in the 1940s and Looking Askance: Skepticism and American Art from Eakins to Duchamp. Francesca Rose is the program director for publications at the Terra Foundation for American Art.
REVIEWS
"Art of the United States, 1750-2000: Primary Sources is an affordable and well-organized anthology that can serve as an introduction to primary sources for undergraduate students studying art history as well as casual readers interested in American art. It is well-suited for general academic collections as well as fine art libraries that support undergraduate study and could easily serve as a supplementary course-assigned text for an introductory American art course."
— Art Libraries Society of North America
"Created with non–English speakers in mind, Art of the United States, 1750–2000 is an inspiring and unique source book. The primary texts—which include letters, artists’ writings, interviews, diaries, and critical texts—provide unique, and sometimes personal, insights about the art and culture of the US during the particular time frame. Together these sources create across-cultural framework for learning about US art in a way that will appeal to anyone interested in US history and art. Recommended."
— Choice
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapters
1750–1830: Building Patronage and Institutions
John Adams, Charles Willson Peale, John Trumbull, John James Audubon…
1830–1850: Landscape, Democracy, Race
Thomas Cole, Samuel F. B. Morse, George Catlin, Frederick Douglass…
1850–1870: The Civil War and its Aftermath
Asher B. Durand, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Hosmer, Oliver Wendell Holmes…
4. 1870–1885: The Gilded Age
J. Alden Weir, Henry James, Thomas Eakins, Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer…
5. 1885–1900: A New Internationalism
Kenyon Cox, James McNeill, Whistler, Mary Cassatt, Booker T. Washington…
6. 1900–1918: Progressivism and Modernism
Lewis Hine, Robert Henri, Theodore Roosevelt, Marcel Duchamp…
7. 1918–1939: Prosperity and Depression
Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Hopper, Langston Hughes, Romare Bearden...
8. 1940–1960: War and Cold War, Anxiety and Affluence
Norman Rockwell, Jackson Pollock, Clement Greenberg, Louise Bourgeois…
9. 1960–1980: Political Polarization, Counterculture and Reaction
Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Smithson, Judy Chicago, Adrian Piper…
10. 1980–2000: Culture Wars and Postmodernism
Cindy Sherman, Maya Lin, Hans Haacke, Jean-Michel Basquiat…
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC