Geographic Tour of American Representational Art History

The Hudson River School is the earliest thematic community of American artists. The Cape Ann art colony is the oldest, most continuously active art colony in America; see Legacy of Cape Ann, by James M. Keny. Cape Ann's long-established art associations are the Rockport Art Association and the North Shore Arts Association, Another important early art center was the Lyme art colony. Further early Eastern art colonies and centers included the Cornish artists' colony, the Cos Cob colony, the Dublin colony, Maine's Monhegan Island Art Colony, the New Hope school of artists, the Ogunquit colony, the Roycroft colony, Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art, the Byrdcliffe arts & crafts colony, and Woodstock colony.

For more on Eastern artists and art see The Spirit of Inness: Creating an "American School" at the Paris Exposition of 1900, by Diane Pietrucha Fischer; "Art, Cheap and Good": The Art Union in England and the United States, 1840-60, by Joy Sperling; Art and Artists in Connecticut, by Harry Willard French; Maryland artists: 1890-1970; the History of White Mountain Art by John J. Henderson, and White Mountains Artists by Lonnie Dunbier. Crossing into the twentieth century, read about The New York Armory Show of 1913 from TFAO's Historic International Exhibitions and Artists and Art Colonies of Ridgefield, New Jersey by Gail Stavitsky.

For Pennsylvania artists see A Matter of Style: Artistic Influences and Directions in 20th-Century Pennsylvania Painting, by Michael A. Tomor; Art and Industry in Philadelphia: Origins of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, by Nina de Angeli Walls; Introduction to "Along the Juniata: Thomas Cole and the Dissemination of American Landscape Imagery", by Nancy Siegel, Scenic Views: Painters of the Scalp Level School Revisited and Pennsylvania Painters and the Roots of Realism, both by Judith Hansen O'Toole.

For Indiana art see The Departure, by Martin Krause (the Hoosier artists); A Walk in the Woods: The Art of John Elwood Bundy, by William H. Gerdts covering the Richmond (Indiana) School, and Art and Artists of Indiana, by Mary Quick Burnet. For Ohio art and artists see Ohio Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, by James M. Keny.

Moving towards the Midwest, for Chicago art history see The Palette & Chisel Academy of Fine Arts. For Wisconsin art history see Art Teachers, Art Schools and Art Museums in Early Wisconsin, by Peter C. Merrill; Society of Milwaukee Artists, by Gay Donahue; Wisconsin's New Art Deal, by Mary Michie; Preface to "Foundations of Art in Wisconsin", Prominence in 19th Century Regional Art, Preface / A Century of Artistic Endeavor and Wisconsin Art from Euro-American Settlement to 1950, by Thomas D. Lidtke. For the Arts and Crafts Movement in the Midwest see University City Ceramics: Saint Louis Heritage and the Arts and Crafts Movement. Read about the Prairie Print Makers, a Kansas artists' group founded in the 1930s.

For Southern art history, see Collected Additions: The Morris Museum and Painting in the South, by Estill Curtis Pennington, A Century of Progress: 20th Century Painting in Tennessee, by Celia Walker, A History of Florida Art from 1564 to the Present, and Lost Colony: The Artists of St. Augustine, 1930-1950, by Robert W. Torchia.

For Southwest art history and Western art, enjoy articles and essays including American Impressionism Goes West, by Charles C. Eldredge; Remington: The Color of Night; Women Artist Pioneers of New Mexico, by Dottie Indyke; A Century of Western Art; Southwestern Colonial Art, by Robert William Brown; The Pictoral Record of the Old West: the Beginning of the Taos School of Art, by Robert Taft; Painters in Taos, New Mexico Prior to 1940; Taos Society of Artists, by Sarah Beserra; "New Deal" Art in New Mexico, by Kathryn Flynn; How the Santa Fe Art Colony Began, by Suzanne Deats; Painted Faith: Traditional New Mexican Devotional Images, by Cody James Hartley; Introduction from "Celebrating America: Masterworks from Texas Collections", by Jane Myers and Barbara McCandless, Painters of Grand Canyon, and Art of the American West, by Peter MacMIllan Booth; from Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art: The Art Colony and Sul Ross State University (see the publications page)

For Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington see 19th-21st Century West Coast Art

For California overall see Art in California: 1880 to 1930, by Jean Stern; In and Out of California: Travels of American Impressionists, by Deborah Epstein Solon; In and Out of California: The Participatory Nature of Early California Art, by Will South; California Watercolor Painters in Context, by Donelson Hoopes; Regionalism: The California View, by Susan M. Anderson; The California Missions in Art - 1786 to 1890, by Norman Neuerburg, Bicoastal Artists of the 1870s by Ann Harlow, and The Metamorphosis of California Landscape Art, by Rexford E. Brandt.

For Northern California see The 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition of San Francisco from TFAO's Historic International Exhibitions; Harvey L. Jones' Twilight and Reverie: California Tonalist Painting 1890-1930 and Landscape Painters of Northern California 1870-1930; The Northern Scene and Towards Impressionism in Northern California, by Raymond L. Wilson; The Society of Six, by Terry St. John; The San Francisco Art Association, The Santa Cruz Art League, The Carmel Art Association, by Betty Hoag McGlynn, Monterey: The Artist's View, 1925 - 1945 by Kent Seavey and The Carmel Monterey Peninsula Art Colony: A History; by Barbara J. Klein

For Southern California read The Land of Sunshine, by William H. Gerdts; Dream and Perspective: American Scene Painting in Southern California, by Susan M. Anderson; Hard-Boiled Wonderland, by Julie Joyce; Continuity and Change: Southern California's Evolving Landscape, by Sarah Vure; the California Art Club from Historic Art Clubs; essays regarding The Art Students League of Los Angeles, 1906-53, by Julia Armstrong-Totten, Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick, and Will South; The Development of an Art Community in the Los Angeles Area, by Ruth Westphal; Loners, Mavericks & Dreamers: Art in Los Angeles Before 1900 and Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and the Eucalyptus School in Southern California, by Nancy Moure; The California Missions in Art: 1890 to 1930, Artists in Santa Catalina Island Before 1945; The Development of Southern California Impressionism, Masters of Light, Impressionist Style in Perspective and Landscape Painting in California, by Jean Stern; What Made Laguna Beach Special, by Deborah Epstein Solon; The California Water Color Society: Genesis of an American Style and The Arts in Santa Barbara by Janet Blake Dominik; Ranchos: The Oak Group Paints the Santa Barbara Countryside, by Ellen Easton, and San Diego Beginnings, by Martin E. Petersen.

 

 

Art History by State

Please see TFAO's Individual States Representational Art History Project for art history resources for each state within the United States.

 

For each state find links to:

plus listings of:

 

Art prior to the establishment of the United States of America

Prior to the establishment of the United States there was already a rich history of art within the boundaries of its land mass. TFAO's online Resource Library contains a wealth of information on historic Native American art and European colonial art. Please see American Representational Art for related topics. Also, keyword searches in Resource Library will retrieve relevant articles and essays.

 

Also from the Web:

For overall art history prior to 1900 see American Art Directory, by American Federation of Arts, 1898

An Amazon.com search within "books" conducted March 24, 2008 located 1,363 pages with the search phrase "American art." Many of the books offer a "Search Inside" feature. The following books are examples:

A Google Book Search conducted April 26, 2008 located:

The Timeline of Art History section of the Metropolitan Museum of Art web site contains thematic essays on American art. As of December 17, 2007 there are:

Modern Painting, by George Moore (reprint of the entire book) from Project Gutenberg

Teachers' Guide to American Art, from Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

[Click here for more on digitizing initiatives.]

 

See these online videos:

The WGBH/Boston Forum Network includes a number of videos on Art and Architecture. Partners include a number of Boston-area museums, colleges, universities and other cultural organizations. Boston Athenaeum partnered with the Forum Network for a series of lectures on American art by David Dearinger, who is Susan Morse Hilles Curator of Paintings and Sculpture at the Boston Athenaeum. An art historian and curator, he received his Ph.D. from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, with a specialty in nineteenth-century American art. Titles include The Academy and Art in America, (1 hour, 5 minutes) a lecture about the role of the formal art academy in the development of American art and art criticism. [March 24, 2005]

 

TFAO suggests these DVD or VHS videos:

A Certain Light 15-minute 1991 videotape of the story of the Lyme Art Colony and the Florence Griswold Museum. Engaging narrative with paintings, antique photos, and period music.

American Heritage is a two-part 30 minute Wilton program that showcases American history through vivid images of past and present. An engaging overview for American art history and social studies students, particularly at the middle school level.

American Vision, The is a 36 minute 1986 National gallery of Art video which is "A broad view of American painting from pre-Revolutionary days to the beginning of the twentieth century."

American Vision: The History of American Art and Architecture produced by Planet 24 in association with BBC Television; a Time Inc.-BBC co-production; produced in association with Thirteen/WNET. eight videocassettes. 60 minutes each. PBS Video, 1996. "In this eight-part series, Robert Hughes, the renowned art critic for Time magazine, takes viewers on an exuberant guided tour through 200 years of our visual culture, vividly illustrating how art conveys deep messages about who America is as a nation. Available through the Sullivan Video Library at The Speed Art Museum which holds a sizable collection of art-related videos available to educators at no charge.

Americans in Paris, 30 minute DVD published in 2006. "Paris was the centre of the art world in the nineteenth century and for American artists, its lure was irresistible. They flocked there in their thousands, eager to establish their artistic credentials. As their letters home prove, initial impressions of Paris were overwhelming: the light, the noise, the smells, the contrasts. Theatres, cafés, gardens and boulevards provided rich subject matter for these painters, as did their fellow artists, often portrayed as the elegantly dressed flâneur (dandy), or as the bohemian, studiedly careless in appearance... This fascinating film, much of it shot on location, captures the excitement that Paris conveyed to its American visitors, and provides a vivid sense of what American artists retained of their experience, and brought back with them to America." Text courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Art in Its Soul: Perspectives of an Art Colony, . "This video traces the evolution of the quaint town of Provincetown, on Cape Cod, as a major art colony through oral history, archival footage and works of art. Artists recall the early 1900s when students from around the world came to study here with Charles Hawthorne." 28 minutes (text courtesy Georgia Museum of Art)

Artists of the West is a 56 minute 2000 PBS Home Video. Actor Joseph Campanella narrates a dramatic story of the American West as seen through the eyes of three pre-eminent artists : Charles Russell, Thomas Moran, and Frederic Remington

Dublin Art Colony Collection at the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery, The 30-minutes. This video, produced and narrated by Paul Tuller, former president of the Dublin Historical Society -- available to libraries throughout New Hampshire -- explains and illustrates in detail the artists and the history of the colony, which flourished around Mount Monadnock in the late 19th century and into the mid 20th century. The video shows many of the wonderful paintings created by this prolific group of 30 artists in the Dublin Colony.

Hudson River and its Painters, The is a 57 minute 1988 video from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Series released by Home Vision Entertainment. The mid-nineteenth century saw the growth of America's first native school of landscape painters, artists inspired by the compelling beauty of the Hudson River Valley, who portrayed this and other romantic wilderness areas with an almost mystical reverence. This 57 minute video explores the life and work of the major artists of what came to be known as the Hudson River School -- Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, Frederic Church, Albert Bierstadt, John Kensett, Jasper Cropsey, Worthington Whittredge, Sanford Gifford, and George Inness. Although its members traveled widely, the growth and development of the school were centered around New York City, and its success reflected the ambitions of the youthful American nation. It presents more than 200 paintings, prints and photographs of the period and juxtaposes them with dramatic location photography of the Hudson River area. The Hudson Company in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hudson River and its Painters, The is available through the Sullivan Video Library at The Speed Art Museum which holds a sizable collection of art-related videos available to educators at no charge.

Impressions of California: Currents in Art 1850-1930. The Irvine Museum collaborated in the filming of this KOCE public television documentary video, produced by Paul Bockhorst, consisting of four 1/2 hour television programs totaling 112 minutes. Available through the Irvine Museum.

The Wildling Museum says: "This landmark public television series, produced by KOCE TV Foundation in 1996, documents the story of California art from statehood in 1850 to the beginning of the Depression in 1930. The narration, illustrated by original works of art from many California museums, features interviews with respected art historians, Bill Gerdts, Wanda Corn, Harvey Jones, and Jean Stern among others. Each program lasts 28 minutes.

Part I: Awakening in the North traces the development of art communities in San Francisco and Monterey.
 
Part II: The Rise of Impressionism in Southern California reviews the coloristic explorations of the "plein air" painters of the early 20th century.
 
Part III: Early Art in Laguna Beach and San Diego describes the art colonies in these two southern California coastal cities and the unique brand of impressionism practiced by artists William Wendt, Edgar Payne, Anna Hills, Joseph Kleitsch, Maurice Braun and others.
 
Part IV: Beyond Impressionism, documents the more subjective and expressive styles of "progressive" artists throughout the State who were influenced by Post-Impressionism in the first decades of the 20th century: The Society of the Six in Oakland, Maynard Dixon in SF, Henrietta Shore and Donna Schuster in Los Angeles, among many."

New World Visions: American Art and the Metropolitan Museum. A two-part 1984 series, 58 minutes each, interweaves painting, sculpture, decorative arts and architecture in an exploration of uniquely American art forms. Using the collections of the Museum as a starting point, the programs were shot on location in New York, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. and New England. Part 1 covers the years 1650-1820 and Part 2 covers the years 1820-1914. Part I begins in the 17th-century Hart Room of The Metropolitan Museum's American Wing, continues through Colonial times, and ends with the emergence of the Hudson River School around 1820. Part II explores 19th-century landscape and portrait painting in depth, and takes viewers to the Frank Lloyd Wright room at The Metropolitan Museum." A co-production of WNET and the BBC.

Time Captured in Paintings: The Monterey Legacy was released by the Monterey Museum of Art which tells the story of Monterey's art colony, including artists Armin Hansen, E. Charlton Fortune, Henrietta Shore, William Ritschel, Gottardo Piazzoni, Xavier Martinez, and others. Jack Lemmon narrates this 28 minute 1991 presentation by Steve Rosen and Terri DeBono. From the arrival of French painter Gaspard Duche de Vancy in 1786, to the thriving creative community of today, this video demonstrates the wide variety of art inspired by the region.

Sister Wendy's American Collection from PBS outlining her journey to six of America's greatest museums. 6 hrs. on 6 VHS cassettes or 6 hrs. on 3 DVDs

Visions of California: The Story of California Scene Painting, produced by Paul Bockhorst for KOCE Public Television in collaboration with The Irvine Museum, is the 1994 story of California Scene Painting 1925-1950. Bockhorst, working with scores of collectors and dozens of institutions and museums nationwide, has created a three-part series of artistic delight and intellectual insight that features almost 150 works of art. Each part is 28 minutes in length with a total viewing time of 84 minutes. Available through the Irvine Museum.

 

TFAO does not maintain a lending library of videos or sell videos. Click here for information on how to borrow or purchase copies of VHS videos and DVDs listed in TFAO's Videos -DVD/VHS, an authoritative guide to videos in VHS and DVD format

rev. 11/17/08

 

 

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