This clear, thorough, and reliable survey of American painting and sculpture from colonial times to the present day covers all the major artists and their works, outlines the social and cultural backgrounds of each period, and includes 409 illustrations integrated with the text. Although some determining factors in American art are considered, Matthew Baigell views the rich and diverse achievements of American art as the result of the efforts and talents of a pluralistic society rather than as fitting into a particular mold.This edition includes corrections and revisions to the text, an updated bibliography, and 13 new illustrations.

Collects the best artwork created before, during and following the Civil War, in the years between 1859 and 1876, along with extensive quotations from men and women alive during the war years and text by literary figures, including Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. 15,000 first printing.

Color field painting, which emerged in the United States in the 1950s, is based on radiant, uninflected hues. Exemplified by the work of Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Larry Poons, and Frank Stella, among others, these stunningly beautiful and impressively scaled paintings constitute one of the crowning achievements of postwar American abstract art. Color as Field offers a long-overdue reevaluation of this important aspect of American abstract painting. The authors examine how color field painting rejects the gestural, layered, and hyper-emotional approach typical of Willem de Kooning and his followers, yet at the same time develops and expands ideas about all-overness and the primacy of color posited by the work of other members of the abstract expressionist generation, such as Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. From the fresh historical standpoint of the 21st century, this fascinating reassessment ranges across the artists’ individual approaches and their commonalities, concluding with insights into the ongoing legacy of post-1970s color field painting among present-day artists.

Describes the transformation in American art as a vast group of American artists settled in Paris to study with the great French painters, and continued through the twentieth century as French artists began to leave Paris for New York.

"For over 200 years, artists have been inspired to capture the beauty, violence, poetry and transformative power of the sea in American life. Oceans play a key role in American society no matter where we live, and the sea continues to inspire painters today to capture its mystery and power. In American Waters reveals that marine painting is so much more than ship portraits. In this exhibition, visitors will also discover the sea as an expansive way to reflect on American culture and environment, learn how coastal and maritime symbols moved inland across the United States, and question what it means to be "in American waters." Be transported across time and water on the wave of a diverse range of modern and historical artists including Georgia O'Keeffe, Amy Sherald, Kay WalkingStick, Norman Rockwell, Hale Woodruff, Paul Cadmus, Thomas Hart Benton, Jacob Lawrence, Valerie Hegarty, Stuart Davis, and many others"--Publisher's website

"How paintings were made--in the most literal sense--is an important but largely unknown aspect of the story of American art. This book, like the authors' previous volume on American painting techniques from the colonial period to 1860, is based on descriptions of the materials and methods that painters used, as found in artists' notebooks, painting manuals, magazines, suppliers' catalogues, letters, diaries, books, and interviews. In interpreting this evidence, the authors have made use of their experience as conservators who have treated many important American paintings."--Book jacket.

American Art to 1900 presents an astonishing variety of unknown, little-known, or undervalued documents to convey the story of American art through the many voices of its contemporary practitioners, consumers, and commentators. The volume highlights such critically important themes as women artists, African American representation and expression, regional and itinerant artists, Native Americans and the frontier, and more. With its hundreds of explanatory headnotes, this book reveals the documentary riches of American art and its many intersecting histories. -back cover.

"A collection of essays presenting international perspectives on the narratives and the practices grounding the scholarly study of American Art"--Provided by publisher.

Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970 is a first-ever survey exploring the lives and artistic production of artists of Asian Ancestry active in the United States before 1970, and features ten essays by leading scholars, biographies of more than 150 artists, and more than 400 reproductions of artwork and photographs of artists, together creating compelling narratives of this heretofore forgotten American art history.