Winslow Homer, The Fox Hunt, 1893, oil on canvas, 38” x 68½”, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Winslow Homer, the American Realist painter, lived and worked in his studio at Prouts Neck in Scarborough, Maine for nearly thirty years before he died, creating many of his most memorable paintings such as The Fox Hunt. Today, this studio will … Continue reading
Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup Cans, 1962, each canvas 20” x 16”, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Photo by Gwenaël Piser via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution License.
Next week on September 18th, an exhibition entitled, “Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years” will open at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The exhibition explores Andy Warhol’s influence on contemporary art with many works by Warhol himself … Continue reading
Nicholas Bernard and Martin Jugiez, High Chest of Drawers, 1765-1775, Mahogany, yellow poplar, white cedar, yellow pine, and brass, 8’ ¾” x 46½’ x 25¾”, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Photo by mharrsch via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution License.
American furniture from the colonial era really is beautiful and the story of these pieces reveals key moments from American history. The high chest of drawers in the background of this photograph is of the American Rococo style, which is … Continue reading
Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930, oil on beaver board, 30.7" x 25.7", The Art Institute of Chicago, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Everyone knows this painting. Grant Wood, one of the leading painters from the Regionalist movement that presented the American way of life in their art, created this somewhat cynical portrait using a realistic style of painting. The image represents a … Continue reading
© 2012 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
Jasper Johns’ paintings made reference to popular or commercially produced imagery and then pulled it into the realm of high art. Johns created an American flag using an expressionistic application of paint, which signified high art in the 1950’s when Abstract … Continue reading
Albert Bierstadt, The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, 1863, oil on canvas, 73.5" x 120.7", The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Albert Bierstadt, perhaps the most successful of the Hudson River School artists, painted very large canvases with majestic scenes of the American West that were hugely popular in New York and London. James McHenry, an American railway entrepreneur living in … Continue reading
Ansel Adams, Monolith, The Face of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California c. 1927, gelatin silver photograph, 8” x 6”, Photo by Cea, Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution License.
Ansel Adams’ remarkably clear and detailed photographs of the majestic American landscape are immediately recognizable to most people. Part of their power derives from their precision, which contributes to the awe-inspiring character and beauty of his work. The precision also … Continue reading
Thomas Hart Benton, The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley, 1934, oil and tempera on canvas, 41.3
Regionalism (noun) A school of American artists who focused upon specific regions of the United States in an effort to celebrate ordinary Americans and their regional culture. In his painting The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley, … Continue reading
© 2012 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
On Monday, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City opened its American Wing after four years of renovations. The collection in the American Wing, which first opened to the public in 1924, is one of the museum’s most … Continue reading
John Singleton Copley, Boy with a Squirrel, 1765, oil on canvas, 30¼” x 25”, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
Back in the Colonial era in America, people were suspicious of art. Art was aristocratic and European. The colonies most definitely were not. It was not easy for artists like John Singleton Copley to find training or work. Typically for … Continue reading