‘A milestone … a vast and compelling tapestry. The history of American art unfurls in a marvellously fresh and often quite unrecognizable way … old-fashioned themes fall away and new ones emerge’ – ArtReview

‘It is essential for all academic and large public libraries’ – Library Journal

‘A work of excellent scholarship … A key text for students and art historians’ – Reference Reviews

A brilliant combination of original scholarship and synthesis, Framing America provides the first comprehensive survey of a new, enlarged vision of American art, while its emphasis on the resonance between art and history offers a new, coherent sense of evolution.

A tradition once assumed to be mainly European and oriented towards painting and sculpture has been enriched by the inclusion of other media and the work of previously marginalized groups such as Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans.

Frances Pohl’s discussion of the early definition of nationhood includes the traditional painters of the Grand Manner, West, Copley, Trumbull, and Stuart. But portraits of George Washington, for instance, are also viewed in relation to portrayals of him in marble, embroidery, and the vogue for domestic ‘mourning pictures’ following his death. Descriptions of the great landscape tradition of Cole, Durand, and Church show how the optimistic assertion of a sublime sense of the American nation was accompanied by a sense of loss as the nation expanded westward.

As our appreciation of the cultural diversity of American life has grown, our sense of American art – its sources, its motives, its possibilities – has become more varied too. Fresh and contemporary, Framing America embraces what history can tell us about art and what art can tell us about America's past and present.

Contents
    Preface
    1 Art and Conquest
    2 Defining America
    3 Nature and Nation
    4 A Nation at War
    5 Work and Art Redefined
    6 The Machine, the Primitive, and the Modern
    7 Art for the People, Art Against Fascism
    8 From Cold War to Culture Wars
    Timeline
    Bibliography
    Acknowledgements for Illustrations
    Index

Customers in the USA can order this book from ThamesandHudsonUSA

Also of interest
American Art and Architecture World of Art series
North American Indian Art
Edward Hopper