America's National Gallery of Art

America's National Gallery of Art
Author: Philip Kopper
Publisher: ABRAMS
Total Pages: 354
Release: 1991
Genre: Art museums
ISBN:

This handsome tribute to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. traces the history of the museum from conception to construction on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary. Opened with great fanfare, the National Gallery was "the richest single gift from any individual to any nation ever." That individual was financier Andrew Mellon. Kopper's succinct biography covers Mellon's personal and political life as well as his passion for collecting the paintings of old masters. Mellon's bequest stipulated the museum's name, location, and details of governance, ensuring continued high standards and a vital future. Kopper includes profiles of the architect and various museum directors, including Mellon's son Paul, as well as illustrations that document some of the collection's highlights. ISBN 0-8109-3658-5: $60.00 (For use only in the library)

Drawing on America's Past

Drawing on America's Past
Author:
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2002
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780807827949

This book presents watercolor renderings along with a selection of the artifacts in the Index of American Design, a visual archive of decorative, folk, and popular arts made in America from the colonial period to about 1900. Three essays explore the history, operation, and ambitions of the Index of American Design, examine folk art collecting in America during the early decades of the twentieth century, and consider the Index's role in the search for a national cultural identity in the early twentieth-century United States.

Outliers and American Vanguard Art

Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Author: Lynne Cooke
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2018
Genre: Art and society
ISBN: 9780226522272

Some 250 works explore three distinct periods in American history when mainstream and outlier artists intersected, ushering in new paradigms based on inclusion, integration, and assimilation. The exhibition aligns work by such diverse artists as Charles Sheeler, Christina Ramberg, and Matt Mullican with both historic folk art and works by self-taught artists ranging from Horace Pippin to Janet Sobel and Joseph Yoakum. It also examines a recent influx of radically expressive work made on the margins that redefined the boundaries of the mainstream art world, while challenging the very categories of "outsider" and "self-taught." Historicizing the shifting identity and role of this distinctly American version of modernism's "other," the exhibition probes assumptions about creativity, artistic practice, and the role of the artist in contemporary culture. The exhibition is curated by Lynne Cooke, senior curator, special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art.--Provided by publisher.

American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art

American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art
Author: National Gallery of Art (U.S.)
Publisher:
Total Pages: 216
Release: 1988
Genre: Art
ISBN:

This is a survey of the history of American art as well as the history of the collection of American Masterpieces in the National Gallery of Art. This enlarged edition reflects the changes in the collection since 1980. The Newly acquired works include Rembrandt Peale's Rubens Peale with Geranium, Hick's Peaceable Kingdom, Cassatt's Little Girl in a Blue Armchair and Hopper's Cape Cod Evening and others by Homer, Eakins, Whistler, Prendergast, O'Keefe and Marin.

Capital Culture

Capital Culture
Author: Neil Harris
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 649
Release: 2013-09-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 022606784X

American art museums flourished in the late twentieth century, and the impresario leading much of this growth was J. Carter Brown, director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, from 1969 to 1992. Along with S. Dillon Ripley, who served as Smithsonian secretary for much of this time, Brown reinvented the museum experience in ways that had important consequences for the cultural life of Washington and its visitors as well as for American museums in general. In Capital Culture, distinguished historian Neil Harris provides a wide-ranging look at Brown’s achievement and the growth of museum culture during this crucial period. Harris combines his in-depth knowledge of American history and culture with extensive archival research, and he has interviewed dozens of key players to reveal how Brown’s showmanship transformed the National Gallery. At the time of the Cold War, Washington itself was growing into a global destination, with Brown as its devoted booster. Harris describes Brown’s major role in the birth of blockbuster exhibitions, such as the King Tut show of the late 1970s and the National Gallery’s immensely successful Treasure Houses of Britain, which helped inspire similarly popular exhibitions around the country. He recounts Brown’s role in creating the award-winning East Building by architect I. M. Pei and the subsequent renovation of the West building. Harris also explores the politics of exhibition planning, describing Brown's courtship of corporate leaders, politicians, and international dignitaries. In this monumental book Harris brings to life this dynamic era and exposes the creation of Brown's impressive but costly legacy, one that changed the face of American museums forever.

For America

For America
Author: Jeremiah William McCarthy
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2019-01-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0300244282

Featuring paintings by American icons like Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins, this book illustrates the ways American artists have viewed themselves, their peers, and their painted worlds over 200 years.

American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century

American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century
Author: National Gallery of Art (U.S.)
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 454
Release: 1995
Genre: Art
ISBN:

The energy and optimism of the new nation are abundantly apparent in this catalogue. It features some of the icons of American art, such as John Singleton Copley's The Copley Family and Gilbert Stuart's portraits of the first five presidents. Numerous paintings, including Benjamin West's Colonel Guy Johnson and Karonghyontye (Captain David Hill), are discussed from a new perspective, the result of information culled from letters, wills, and other previously unpublished documents. The author offers new interpretations of some works, among them Charles Willson Peale's portrait of the Baltimore couple Benjamin and Eleanor Ridgely Laming. The volume is richly illustrated, with carefully selected comparative illustrations.

Our America

Our America
Author: Smithsonian American Art Museum
Publisher: Giles
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2014
Genre: Art
ISBN:

Explores how one group of Latin American artists express their relationship to American art, history and culture.

Art for the Nation

Art for the Nation
Author: National Gallery of Art (U.S.)
Publisher:
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2000
Genre: Art
ISBN:

Exhibition includes approximately 2% of the acquisitions made during the 1990s.