Coming of Age
American Art, 1850s to 1950s
Published on 31. October 2006
Book
Hardback
136 pages
978-0-300-11523-9 (ISBN)
Description
A sumptuous catalogue that traces the evolution of a uniquely American aesthetic identity
From the 1850s to the 1950s, American art and culture progressed from provincial status to international prominence, and American art transitioned from figurative depictions of the particular to abstract interpretations of universal ideals. This beautiful book chronicles this complex century of maturation through a selection of paintings from the extraordinary collection of the Addison Gallery of American Art.
Coming of Age begins with Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Church, and the Hudson River School landscapes that embody the new nationalism of mid-nineteenth-century America. Their successors, Luminists like Jasper Cropsey and Fitz H. Lane, infused their immediate surroundings with glowing light and crystalline clarity, while contemporary Barbizon-influenced tonalists, such as George Inness, sought to capture the American ethos through an emotional, atmospheric landscape language. In the later 19th century, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and Eastman Johnson depicted native subjects through the lens of realism. Childe Hassam and Maurice Prendergast brought Impressionist aesthetics to America, while expatriates including John Singer Sargent and James McNeil Whistler established themselves in European art capitals. In New York, turn-of-the-century Ashcan school painters captured the gritty cityscape that would later host champions of modernism Alfred Stieglitz, Man Ray, and Marsden Hartley. In the 1930s, European-trained artist Josef Albers introduced a generation of American painters to new theories of color and space from which emerged the breakthrough Abstract Expressionists. By the 1950s, American art had come of age, as Americans securely held the vanguard position in the international art world.
Published in association with the American Federation of Arts
Exhibition Schedule:
Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts (September 9, 2006 - January 7, 2007)
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London (March 14 - June 8, 2008)
Meadows Museum of Art, Dallas (November 30 - February 24, 2008)
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (June 27 - October 12, 2008)
Musee national des beaux-arts du Quebec (May 21 - September 7, 2009)
From the 1850s to the 1950s, American art and culture progressed from provincial status to international prominence, and American art transitioned from figurative depictions of the particular to abstract interpretations of universal ideals. This beautiful book chronicles this complex century of maturation through a selection of paintings from the extraordinary collection of the Addison Gallery of American Art.
Coming of Age begins with Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Church, and the Hudson River School landscapes that embody the new nationalism of mid-nineteenth-century America. Their successors, Luminists like Jasper Cropsey and Fitz H. Lane, infused their immediate surroundings with glowing light and crystalline clarity, while contemporary Barbizon-influenced tonalists, such as George Inness, sought to capture the American ethos through an emotional, atmospheric landscape language. In the later 19th century, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and Eastman Johnson depicted native subjects through the lens of realism. Childe Hassam and Maurice Prendergast brought Impressionist aesthetics to America, while expatriates including John Singer Sargent and James McNeil Whistler established themselves in European art capitals. In New York, turn-of-the-century Ashcan school painters captured the gritty cityscape that would later host champions of modernism Alfred Stieglitz, Man Ray, and Marsden Hartley. In the 1930s, European-trained artist Josef Albers introduced a generation of American painters to new theories of color and space from which emerged the breakthrough Abstract Expressionists. By the 1950s, American art had come of age, as Americans securely held the vanguard position in the international art world.
Published in association with the American Federation of Arts
Exhibition Schedule:
Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts (September 9, 2006 - January 7, 2007)
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London (March 14 - June 8, 2008)
Meadows Museum of Art, Dallas (November 30 - February 24, 2008)
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (June 27 - October 12, 2008)
Musee national des beaux-arts du Quebec (May 21 - September 7, 2009)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
7 b-w + 78 color illus.
Dimensions
Height: 292 mm
Width: 241 mm
Weight
1134 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-300-11523-9 (9780300115239)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
William C. Agee is Evelyn Kranes Kossak Professor of Art History at Hunter College, City University of New York. Susan C. Faxon is Associate Director and Curator of Art Before 1950 at the Addison Gallery of American Art.