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The article presents an extensive analysis and discussion of the work of the 20th-century American artist Vija Celmins, particularly her lunar drawings. Details are given outlining the historical context and source material for the moon drawings, providing an overview of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) campaign to document and showcase the American space exploration program. In-depth commentary is also given exploring the themes and techniques of Celmins' work, discussing themes of human-machine relationship and the technological medium of cameras.

In this article, the author looks back at the Forward Exhibition of American modernist art held in May 1917 in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City. More specifically, the author examines the role played by the exhibition's organizer, the People's Art Guild, in its attempt to bring the latest art movements to working-class immigrants. A brief history of the guild, which was founded by the educator and art critic John Weichsel in 1915, is presented. The author argues that Weichsel and the People's Art Guild not only sought to bring modern art to the people but also attempted to revolutionize the relationship between artists and the public.

hat irritation of offensively red brick is this, red aspoor-man's flesh? —William Carlos Williams, Paterson (1946) These lines from William Carlos Williams's modernist American epic provide an apt epigraph for Oscar Bluemner's paintings of the textile mills of Paterson, New Jersey. Thirty years later, Williams, by choosing Paterson as a fitting microcosm in which to set his poetic meditation upon “ the mind of modern man and the city,” echoed Bluemner's realization that this gritty New Jersey town of immigrant workers, with its history of labor strife, could stand for the essence of America. Oscar Bluemner first sketched and painted his view of Paterson's silk factories against the backdrop of Garrett Mountain around 1911. Five years later he radically revised this work in watercolor and then in oil. During the interim, much had changed for both the artist and the city. Contacts with European modernism abroad and at home had transformed Bluemner's artistic language.

Reflects on experiences as an art historian. Events leading to the decision of becoming an art historian; Completion of a project on genre painting; Experience as a curator for a landscape exhibition; Decision to write about artist Winslow Homer.

The article discusses the artistic influence of American painter Gilbert Stuart on 19th century artists. It describes Stuart's portraits of famous Americans such as U.S. president George Washington, his relationship to such artists as Joseph Delaplaine, Benjamin Waterhouse, and Henry Pickering, and his artistic role in criticizing British political policies during the American Revolution. Other subjects under discussion include Stuart's materialism, his use of tobacco, cigars, and snuff, and his satirical and mocking portraits of British king George III.

The article presents an in-depth analysis of the anti-war art of the 1960s American artist Peter Saul. Details are given highlighting the output of the artist criticizing perceived U.S. imperialism in Southeast Asia in general and the Vietnam War in particular. Several examples of Saul's work are cited and examined. Discussion is given noting Saul's distinctive techniques and media choices within the context of the 1960s U.S. mass-media culture, particularly referencing his use of caricature and cartoon and his depiction of sexuality and violence. An overview of several exhibitions launched by Saul during the war are also discussed.

The article Vinnie Ream and Sarah Fisher Ames, first women sculptors to produce official images of the martyred U.S. President Abraham Lincoln for the U.S. Capitol. They each created their sculptures for the nation in the short-lived progressive environment of Reconstruction. Reform movements of the era, from abolition to suffrage, propelled women like Ames and Ream into the public arena. Their achievements attracted the attention of women's rights activists.

This essay focuses how Japanese artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi tried to prove his U.S. allegiance by aiding the U.S. propaganda during World War II in a variety of ways. These included his creation of more than a dozen designs for anti-Japan posters for the Office of War Information (OWI). In this crucial project, he tried to express both his abhorrence of Japan's militarism and his own Americanness to distinguish émigré Japanese like himself from the wartime enemy.

The article comments on the emergence in a number of cities of major archives that seek to document the creative expressions of the U.S. Latino community. The author features some projects about preserving Latin art. Several factors have stimulated the sense of urgency embodied in these projects. She also assesses the results of these efforts, including the visibility of Latino culture.

The article discusses the history of Latino art in the U.S. The author presents some factors which led to the acceptance of Latino art, including the growing population of Latinos in the country. A number of books are being produced discussing different movements and periods of Latino art. The author also features a new generation of Latino art historian that historicize Latino cultural production.

This article presents information on the study of American art during the nineteenth century. Within the past decade, the pace of scholarship has quickened in all areas of early American visual studies. In addition to monographic and single-picture studies, genres that have long characterized American art history, scholars are pursuing ideas across matrixes of artists, artifacts, and cultural practices. In addition to the strides taken within art history, innovative work on early American visual and material culture is being done in American history, literature, cultural history, and American studies. The Worcester Art Museum, for instance, maintains an educational website documenting its important collection of early American paintings.

This article focuses on the fact that female purity constituted a dominant theme for artists in the late nineteenth century. Indeed, late-nineteenth-century America, often referred to as the Gilded Age for its display of corporate wealth and cultural patronage, was also characterized by massive immigration, working-class violence, overcrowded housing for the poor, garbage-filled streets, industrial pollution, and the spread of epidemic disease. All of which played a role in remaking the nation as a specifically modern entity. For the most part, scholars have assumed that this process of modernization unfolded independently of artists' depictions of idealized women.

Meta Warrick Fuller created "Ethiopia for the America's Making Exposition," a 1921 fair that focused on the contributions of immigrants to American society. Fuller's original small-scale model, now lost and known only through surviving photographs, was the first of several versions she created during her lifetime of the sculpture, variously called "Ethiopia," "Awakening Ethiopia," "Ethiopia Awakening," or "The Awakening of Ethiopia." It filled a need for African Americans to formulate an authentic racial identity by looking to the grand achievements of Egyptian history while also supporting the romantic ideal of Christian Ethiopia as a symbol of black liberation.

In 1870 the Boston, Massachusetts-based firm of Louis Prang and Company, one of the leading dealers of chromolithography, published a portrait of Hiram R. Revels, the newly admitted senator from Mississippi, based on an oil painting by the German-immigrant artist and Union army veteran Theodore Kaufmann. Historians and art historians have reached out to one another's work for each discipline's distinctive resources and perspectives, but for the most part each then retreats back to its respective favored intellectual turf, its favored approaches and purview, an independence that ultimately confines historical understanding.

One of the tallest tales in American art history begins as a parable of social modesty. Reiterated endlessly in twentieth-century studies of American art and the Peale family, the story of Washington's deception at the hands of Charles Willson Peale helped crown the Staircase Group as an icon of trompe l' oeil art—a pictorial deception.

Presents the writer's comments and thoughts on paintings of American painter Agnes Martin. Martin's use of the line in her paintings; Elements of mysticism in her paintings; Liberal use of lines and colors in abstract expressionism.

Narrates the history of artist and painter, Jacob Kainen. Description of Kainen; Influences on the paintings of Kainen; Presentation of several paintings of Kainen.

This article presents an appreciation of artistic works of painter Robert Blackburn. Robert Blackburn was known as a "printmaker's printmaker". His own artistic production suffered as a result of this fifty-four year commitment. But when his graphic oeuvre is assessed, one can find out why he quickly developed a reputation for complex, multi-stone color lithographic experimentation and technical excellence. His key works shift between cubistic arrangements and color abstractions. In contrast to many African American artists of his generation, Blackburn chose to sidestep the weighty issues brought to the fore by figurative work. He placed his viewers before a window and a plane simultaneously, at times conjuring three dimensions but always playfully insisting on the conventions of picturing, and always referring to the sheet, the stone, and the block.

In this article, the author discusses the work of the American landscape and marine painter Fitz Henry Lane. Focusing on the period between 1848 and 1865, the author argues that Lane's paintings, especially those he created while on numerous trips to the state of Maine, indirectly address the precarious political situation in the U.S. in the years leading up to the Civil War. More specifically, it is argued that various political issues, including the virtues of free as opposed to slave labor, the importance of cardinal directionality with respect to questions of national territory, and the need to heal a divided nation, structure some of the most important formal and iconographic features of Lane's work at this time.

In this article, the author discusses the various uses of armory buildings in the U.S. from the late 19th-century to the early 20th-century. The author notes that armories were employed to host both military and civilian events, including various kinds of exhibitions. Particular focus is paid to the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art held at the 69th Regiment National Guard Armory in New York City, an event which subsequently came to be known simply as The Armory Show. More specifically, the author looks to the architecture of armory buildings, their traditions of display and media representations in order to uncover evidence of militarism, commerce and spectacle in the 1913 Armory Show and previous armory exhibitions.

In this article, the author looks back at the "The Forum Exhibition of Modern American Painters," held from March 13-25, 1916 at the Anderson Galleries in New York City. The exhibition was the brainchild of the American art critic Willard Huntington Wright, who envisioned it as an opportunity to demonstrate the significant achievements of modernist American artists who he believed had been overshadowed by the European art on display at the more renowned Armory Show of 1913. The article discusses the exhibition's mixed critical reception and the debates it generated about the identity and future of American art. Special emphasis is paid to the debate between Wright and the American art dealer Robert Coady regarding the role of abstraction within American modernism.

The article discusses the relationship between human bodies and the landscape in art depicting the U.S. Civil War, with a particular focus on the stereograph "Wounded Trees at Gettysburg" by Mathew Brady. According to the author, Brady and other artists explored the connections between bullet-riddled trees and the wounded bodies of soldiers and drew on images and concepts from the art of the Romantic period in order to understand 19th-century warfare. Details on the symbolic relationship between trees and longevity are also presented. Other topics include anthropomorphism and sculptures and illustrations depicting the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg.

The article discusses the 1950s-1960s work of Colombian artists Edgar Negret and Eduardo Ramírez-Villamizar, whose work in New York City influences abstract geometric art in Colombia. The author focuses on Negret's "Magic Machines" sculpture and relief series and Ramírez-Villamizar's "White Reliefs" series. Specific topics include the abstract expressionist movement in New York City, the Coenties Slip group of artists, 1960s exhibitions of abstract art in New York City and Bogotá, Colombia, and other abstract artists including Ellsworth Kelly and Louise Nevelson.

The article discusses mural paintings in the 1897 U.S. Library of Congress building in Washington, D.C. in relation to the civic art movement in the U.S. The author describes the government's commission of a mural program for the building, including "The Evolution of Civilization" by Edwin Blashfield. Specific topics include the Library of Congress as a site of civic instruction and engagement, the role of mural painting in late 19th-century Progressivism and reform, the influence of the European Renaissance on American artists, and a photographic survey of public schools by Frances Benjamin Johnston. Other muralists discussed include Edward Simmons, Charles Sprague Pearce, and John White Alexander.

The article discusses the concept of encuentros, or encounters, as a paradigm for the study of American art as a nation within a continent. According to the author, this paradigm is taking the place of a framework based on the idea of multiculturalism which was prevalent during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Signs of encounters, the author continues, can be seen in the relationships that link art education, social movements and artistic production, and in the relationships between artists, critics and collectors from throughout the American continent. It is noted that the symposium "Encuentros: Artistic Exchange between the U.S. and Latin America," held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, represents an effort to reframe the study of American art history.

The article discusses engravings created by artists George Munger and William Strickland depicting Washington, D.C. after it was burned by British forces during the War of 1812. The author examines the engraving's depictions of landscape, architecture, and the picturesque. The relationship between these stylistic elements and U.S. national identity, civic responsibility, and the body politic is explained. The causes of the War of 1812 are outlined at the outset of the article in order to note a lack of unity among Americans at the time.

The article discusses the smile of former child actress Shirley Temple as it is shown in a photograph of her visit to the White House as a means to analyze emotion in the U.S. during the Great Depression. The author notes that commercial art, entertainment, and politics attempted to foster a sense of confidence and cheerfulness in Americans with such images of and performances of happiness. The author also describes U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's performances of cheer during this time. He goes on to connect Temple to the imposition of strict child labor laws in the U.S.

The article analyzes the painting "Making a Train," by U.S. painter Seymour Joseph Guy, primarily focusing on the ways in which the work commented upon 19th-century women's fashion, consumer culture, and vanity. The author then discusses possible literary influences for Guy's painting and his views on the aforementioned characteristics in general, including the poetry of English writer Henry Gardiner Adams, a novel by English author George Eliot, and the work of English novelist Charles Dickens. More generally, Guy's focus on depicting the working poor is analyzed. The author also relates the extension of popular 19th-century fashion to rural areas to Guy's painting.

The article discusses the photography of U.S. photographer Alfred Stieglitz, primarily focusing on an analysis of his photographs of clouds. Emphasis is given to such photographs taken at Lake George in New York. More broadly, the author is concerned with developments in Stieglitz's landscape photography, which also included a photograph of rain-covered grass at Lake George. The use of clouds as a form of photographic subject matter in and of themselves is also explained by the author. Stieglitz's view that his photographic images were related to music is discussed.

The article focuses on paintings by 20th-century American artists Childe Hassam and Marsden Hartley. It focuses on American patriotism in several paintings including "Flags on the Waldorf," "Washington's Birthday, Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street," and "The Fourth of July, 1916" (The Greatest Display of the American Flag Ever Seen in New York; Climax of the Preparedness Parade in May 1916) by Hassam. Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt's restriction on expression of political sentiment to the American flag is discussed in light of an exhibition of paintings in honor of the German military by Hartley. Topics include the Preparedness Day Parade in New York City, preparation of the U.S. for involvement in World War I, and anti-German sentiment in the U.S. in 1916.

The article presents an in-depth examination into the history of the 1939 New York World's Fair and its artistic culture. Focus is given to the prominence of the modernist movement and its aesthetics within its featured mural art exhibitions. Contextual information is given regarding the planning of the World's Fair between 1935 and its launch in 1939. Analysis is offered regarding the abstract techniques used in several murals, highlighting their thematic connections to the ideologies of the Works Progress Administration which commissioned them. Specific works and artists profiled include Philip Guston, Byron Browne, and Louis Schanker.

The article discusses the ways in which American visual culture and sculpture illustrated 19th century views on marriage. It describes decorative prints, fashion plates, and illustrations demonstrating romantic ideals. It notes the idea of feminine submission in the marble sculpture "The Greek Slave" by the artist Hiram Powers and its influence on marriage norms. The article describes the relationship between 19th century American art and issues related to gender and socioeconomic class. The article also discusses the legal and social definitions of marriage, the rise of communal societies and polygamy, and the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

The article discusses the painting "The Atlantic Cable Projectors," an 1866 commemorative portrait painting of the business leaders responsible for laying the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. The article describes the work of the painter Daniel Huntington, the historical significance of the cable operation led by the president of Atlantic Telegraph Company Cyrus W. Field, and the symbolic aspects of the painting in relation to American ideals of innovation, progress, and technological development. Other subjects under discussion include the influence of the painting "Men of Progress: American Inventors" by Christian Schussele on Huntington's portrait, the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, and the relation between American art and capitalism.

The article discusses public memorials to the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in New York City, which killed 146 young, mostly female, Jewish and Italian workers. The fire was believed to be the result of the company's undermining of garment union attempts to improve working conditions. The city refused to release the unidentified bodies for a public procession, fearing expressions of outrage, and instead buried the bodies quietly in Brooklyn. A large parade organized by the union took place on the same day with almost 400,000 people attending. A memorial statue appeared at the graves in December 1912. Possible sculptors, including Evelyn Beatrice Longman and Henry Bacon, are discussed. Class differences in the approach to memorials are discussed.

The article discusses the significance of masks in colonial portraits such as that of John Wollaston's portrait of Charlestonian Ann Gibbes, in which she holds a mask of Venetian style. It notes that masked balls were highly popular before the American Revolution as a way for colonials to establish their British heritage. An English engraving from 1772 by Carington Bowles is cited, showing Lady Betty Bustle and her maid preparing for a masquerade in which the lady holds a mask similar to that held by Ann Gibbes. It notes that the colonial portraits served to define status but also to question the possibility of maintaining a civilized society in the North American context.

The article presents a profile and analysis of the religious identity of the American photorealist artist Audrey Flack through an overview of her personal background and a survey of the religious and social subjects explored within her artistic output. It is asserted that while her use of religious imagery is widely recognized, her Jewish identity is frequently overlooked. Examination of several works by Flack is provided along with quotations from the artist in order to further explore the broader religious subjects and Jewish mentality expressed within them.

The article presents an in-depth exploration of the artistic philosophy and aesthetics of the turn-of-the-20th-century American artist Arthur B. Davies. Details are given highlighting his working philosophy of art as an expression of life and his extensive use of the central metaphor of breathing. Several examples of Davies' work are cited and analyzed, particularly discussing his use of human figures and their poses and postures. It is asserted that Davies was heavily influenced in his work by contemporary dance and exercise systems which were also highly focused on breathing. Several individuals who exemplified this influence are also profiled.

The article reports that concurrent with the rise of women's studies and cultural studies, children's literature has been making its way back to the halls of academic respectability in the last thirty-five years. Eleven universities in the U.S. and abroad now offer both the MA and the PhD in English with concentrations in children's literature. In the last decade, the Harry Potter phenomenon has spurred an even greater interest in literature for children.

The article presents a glimpse into the short-lived phenomenon of caricature exhibitions, which flourished at American art schools between 1891 and 1914. More than sophomoric jokes or publicity stunts, these productions presented an opportunity for students to organize their own exhibitions and critique contemporary art. The students' creations included oil paintings and watercolors as well as assemblages of sometimes ephemeral items.

This article focuses on the teaching of photography as art. Throughout photography's history, photographic training has been as diverse as the varieties and genres of photographs that exist. The direct instruction was supplemented by instructional literature in the form of periodicals and manuals, not to mention the development of technology whose use was intuitive. The progenitor of modern photographic education in the U.S. was pictorialist Clarence White, a founding member of the Photo-Secession in 1902.

This article looks at photography as an integral part of American studies scholarship. Photography has allowed people to look at vernacular culture and has revealed the agency of people whose role in history was previously ignored or minimized. These populist or democratizing impulses have been at the core of photography's appearance in the field. Photography appeared relatively late as a serious object of study in the field of American studies. The American Studies Association was founded in 1951.

The article focuses on artist Norman Rockwell and his works of art. Rockwell was one of the foremost shapers of U.S. white middle-class' self-image in the second quarter of the twentieth century. Shuffleton's Barbershop, which appeared on the cover of a 1950 issue of "Saturday Evening Post," is considered as one of Rockwell's paeans to the virtues of small-town life. In Freedom to Worship, he openly flouted his rules for representation by sneaking an elderly African American woman.

The article examines John Singleton Copley's Henry Pelham, Boy With a Squirrel, in transit and its role in the development of eighteenth-century art and material culture in the U.S. Many discussions of the painting have used its largely positive reception overseas to establish and legitimate the protonationalist roots of a homegrown American empiricism. As befits its singular status, the painting diverges significantly in compositional terms from Copley's earlier work.

The article presents a biography of American pop artist, James Rosenquist, who is known for his works as F-111, President-Elect, and I Love You with My Ford. Rosenquist was born in 1933 and attended art classes at the University of Minnesota. At age 72, he remains a fountainhead of new visions and ideas. An interview with Rosenquist, in which he freely offered his opinions about collectors, curators, artists, politics,and the art market, is presented.

The article relates the author's experience of meeting American artist Georgia O'Keeffe in 1975. The most dramatic aspect of his visit was O'Keeffe's open anger at groups of women who literally worship her. She would find white flowers on her doorstep, presumably in tribute to her paintings, token offerings made to her as a guiding goddess of the feminine sensibility. It was obvious that she was genuinely disgusted by these displays of idolatry.

The author relates her experience of meeting American artist, Georgia O'Keeffe in 1980 when she visited her for an interview on Alfred Stieglitz. She remembers that O'Keeffe was not interested in theoretical or abstract questions. Sometimes she answered questions so curtly that there was no reason to push further. When asked why she had put Stieglitz's name in her painting, The Radiator Building at Night, her reply was simply because she had to put something there.

The article focuses on misread signals in art. Filmmaker Theo van Gogh was shot to death by Muslim immigrant Mohammed Bouyeri due to van Gogh's film "Submission: Part I" which featured verses from the Koran written on a naked woman. It has been criticized that the strategy used by van Gogh had been lifted from artist Shirin Neshat. Misread signals in art can be traced in immigrant history as artists in the U.S. have had the means and the audience to announce news from their homelands.

The article focuses on the depiction of young girls with dolls in art in the U.S. Childhood is commonly viewed as a weighty human theme and not primarily as a time of happy playfulness. The depictions of children have increased after 1750 due to a conception of childhood as a state separate from adulthood. Dolls are being visualized in Anglo-American female education as a guide for young girls to virtuous womanhood.

The article describes the "Woman Eating" sculpture of artist Duane Hanson. The sculpture is made of polyvinyl resins and fiberglass, synthetic materials that imitate the translucence of human skin. It depicts an overweight, middle-aged woman sitting at a restaurant table, eating ice cream sundae. The sculpture exemplifies the issues of modern U.S. class, obesity and consumerism.

The article explores the importance of guns and shooting in structuring the art of painter Charles Schreyvogel on a fundamental level. Although less celebrated than his contemporaries, Schreyvogel played a significant role in consolidating the image of the West as a theater of warfare between U.S. cavalry troopers and Native Americans. The guns in his paintings do more than reconstruct the history of conquest that Theodore Roosevelt famously called the winning of the West.