Early American Art
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Visual Art of the United States
Visual art of the United States or American art is visual art made in the United States or by U.S. artists. Before colonization, there were many flourishing traditions of Native American art, and where the Spanish colonized Spanish Colonial architecture and the accompanying styles in other media were quickly in place. Early colonial art on the East Coast initially relied on artists from Europe, with John White (1540-c. 1593) the earliest example. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, artists primarily painted portraits, and some landscapes in a style based mainly on English painting. Furniture-makers imitating English styles and similar craftsmen were also established in the major cities, but in the English colonies, locally made pottery remained resolutely utilitarian until the 19th century, with fancy products imported.
Early American Art
The museum’s collection begins with works from the colonies of New Spain and New England. Some of the oldest works in the collection are from seventheenth-century Puerto Rico—Santa Bárbara (Saint Barbara), a painting from about 1680–90, and Nuestra Señora de los Dolores (Our Lady of Sorrows), a painted wood sculpture from about 1675–1725. The collection features artworks that trace the transformation of the thirteen colonies into a nation, including portraits by John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale, and Gilbert Stuart; landscapes by Thomas Cole; and sculptures by Horatio Greenough.
Art in American Colonies and the United States, c. 1700–1865
It was only in 1605 the the British founded Roanoke Colony in what would later be named North Carolina. Although Roanoke Colony failed while still in its infancy, two years later the British colony of Jamestown—founded in 1607—managed, despite starvation and disease, to survive. It is estimated that the combined European population of North America in 1610 was approximately 350. In contrast to this, a recent study has suggested that the population of Indigenous peoples in what is now the United States and Canada approached 7 million—a number that was greatly reduced in the decades following the arrival of Europeans due to genocide and the introduction of pathogens from Europe, Asia, and Africa to which the Indigenous peoples of the Americas had no protection.
Art of the Americas
The Art of the Americas department studies, presents, and cares for the paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts made throughout North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean by artists from many cultures and nations. Spanning 3,000 years, from the ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica to the modern art capitals of Mexico City and New York, these objects embody the essential human desire to create meaning and beauty through art and craft, a drive shared by artists free and enslaved, trained and self-taught, immigrant and indigenous. Shaped by global contexts of migration, war, commerce, politics, and cultural exchange, the works on view hold many stories and reflect a wide range of ideas about the Americas and Americanness—as a place, an identity, and an aspiration.
In Focus: Early American Art
by Farnsworth Art Museum 19/7/25
In Focus: Early American Art invites visitors to delve into the Museum’s exceptional holdings of American art from the 18th to early 20th century. Featuring both iconic pieces and recent acquisitions, the show offers a fresh perspective on American art history. Through portraits, landscapes, and Wabanaki baskets, the exhibition broadens our understanding of the country’s cultural heritage, artistic legacy and Maine’s role within it.
American Folk Art Museum is a center of scholarship
Ancient American Art in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
A rich history of creative expression—parallel to, but independent of, the rest of the world—unfolded in North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean thousands of years prior to European colonization. Over the course of several millennia, artists transformed select materials into monumental stone sculptures, finely crafted gold ornaments, and other works in wood, ceramic, shell, textile, and featherwork. The Met’s collection of ancient American art sheds light on how these works were commissioned, created, and animated by powerful men and women across the continents.
Unnamed Figures: Black Presence and Absence in the Early American North
Through 125 remarkable works including paintings, needlework, and photographs, this exhibition invites visitors to focus on figures who appear in—or are omitted from—early American images and will challenge conventional narratives that have minimized early Black histories in the North, revealing the complexities and contradictions of the region’s history between the late 1600s and early 1800s.
New Galleries Will Present a Fresh Take on Art of the Americas with a Focus on Philadelphia
by PHILADEPHIA ART MUSEUM 25/2/21
On May 7, 2021, when the Philadelphia Museum of Art unveils its new Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Galleries dedicated to American art from 1650 to1850, visitors will enter a succession of generously proportioned spaces to experience the museum’s spectacular collection of early American art in an entirely new light. In galleries that will be accessed from a spacious corridor that provides superb views to the city skyline through windows with Tiffany iron grilles—original to the building but blocked for many decades—visitors will be presented with the first major reinstallation of early American art since the nation’s Bicentennial celebrations in 1976.
Early American Painting
Early American art includes works made by settlers in what we now know as the United States. Before the American Revolution, artists documented life in the colonies of New Spain and New England. And in the early decades of the United States, many artists represented the new nation through portraits of its early leaders.
List of American artists before 1900
This is a list by date of birth of historically recognized American fine artists known for the creation of artworks that are primarily visual in nature, including traditional media such as painting, sculpture, photography, and printmaking.
Ten Artworks to Understand Early United States History
From the Native peoples lobbying to keep their homelands to immigrants facing challenges in their new home, artists used these works to shape American identity, advocate for change, and reckon with our nation’s stories.
American Paintings and Sculpture
by YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY
Yale University has been collecting American art for more than 250 years. In 1832 it erected the first art museum on a college campus in North America, with the intention of housing John Trumbull’s paintings of the American Revolution—including his iconic painting The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776—and close to 100 of his portraits of Revolutionary and Early Republic worthies.
Foundations of American Art
Spanning from the 18th century to the mid-20th century, the newly installed Foundations of American Art gallery—the first fully transformed gallery in our expansion—offers an engaging and immersive journey through the early and modern chapters of our shared cultural story.
At the Dawn of a New Age: Early Twentieth-Century American Modernism
by Whitney Museum of American Art 7/5/22
At the Dawn of a New Age: Early Twentieth-Century American Modernism showcases art produced between 1900 and 1930 by well-known American modernists and their now largely forgotten, but equally groundbreaking peers. Drawn primarily from the Whitney’s permanent collection, it provides new perspectives on the myriad ways American artists used nonrepresentational styles developed in Europe to express their subjective responses to the realities of the modern age.
The first newly-transformed gallery highlights artists and stories from the 18th to early 20th centuries
BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art reaches a major milestone in its expansion on Saturday, July 19, when the museum’s first newly-transformed gallery opens to the public. The Foundations of American Art Gallery is located in the former Contemporary space and features works many visitors may remember from the Early American collection, like Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 and Richard Caton Woodville’s War News from Mexico, as well as several new works that will surprise, delight, and inspire guests. The installation highlights artists and stories from the 18th to early 20th centuries, connecting the past with the present.
American Made: Selections from The Huntington’s Early American Art Collections Exhibitions
The American art collections are growing, and the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art are expanding to make room for new acquisitions and to improve the visitor experience. While several rooms are closed this fall during renovations, curators have taken the opportunity to spotlight some of the earliest works in the collection in a temporary installation in the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery. “American Made: Selections from The Huntington’s Early American Art Collections” opens Sept. 5 and continues through Jan. 5, 2016, focusing on masterworks from the colonial period through the Civil War.
The Art of Early American Embroidery
From the 1600s until about 1830, the education of American girls emphasized reading, writing, and embroidery. For girls whose families could afford to send them to school, a finely worked embroidery which was worthy of being framed for display in her home served as a kind of diploma. It evidenced both her mastery of an important practical skill and the diligence and self-discipline that society expected of its more privileged members.
EARLY AMERICAN PAINTER
My name is Suzanne Carroll Korn. I am an early American painter, folk artist, and owner of Grace for Daisy Folkart! I'm so happy you found my website. My inspiration leaps from the folk art landscapes, designs, and motifs found on New England’s 19th century historic paint-decorated walls. Over 20 years ago, I began researching, studying, and writing about these large and amazing remnants of American folk art that were painted between the years 1800 – 1860.
American Decorative Arts
The American collection of decorative arts contain examples of furniture, sculpture, textiles, glass, ceramic, and metalwork from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The collection includes tools, portraits, landscapes, quilts, chairs, and rare examples of exuberantly painted furniture that come primarily from rural New England.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
by Smithsonian American Art Museum
The nation’s first collection of American art offers an unparalleled record of the American experience, capturing the aspirations, character and imagination of the American people throughout three centuries. The museum is home to one of the largest and most inclusive collections of American art in the world, including works by such stylistically diverse luminaries as John Singleton Copley, Winslow Homer, and Georgia O’Keeffe. The museum shares its magnificent National Historic Landmark building with the National Portrait Gallery.
American art collection
Portraiture is central to this collection and includes the oldest known self-portrait by an American artist, Thomas Smith, as well as the oldest American portrait paintings, by the Freake-Gibbs Painter. The collection has over 100 objects of Paul Revere silver and significant examples of 19th-century and early 20th-century American paintings with works by Edward Mitchell Bannister, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent.
Early American Galleries
Trace the origins of our city’s extraordinary creativity in our new Early American Art galleries. The 10,000-square-foot space has been installed to tell the story of how Philadelphia became the young nation’s cultural capital, and how Black, Indigenous, and Latin American artists contributed to the development of American art.
The American Wing
Visitors to the American Wing will experience in more than 75 galleries on three floors varied art, design, and culture from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-twentieth century, with some contemporary expressions, by a diverse array of artists from across North America. Since our founding in 1924, this curatorial department has evolved its collecting to include some 20,000 artworks in many mediums by African American, Asian American, Euro-American, Latin American, and Native American makers, affirming ever more inclusive definitions of American art and identity.
American Painting and Sculpture
by THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART
The American holdings at the Cleveland Museum of Art rank among the finest anywhere. One year prior to its opening to the public in 1916, the museum purchased its first painting, John Singleton Copley’s portrait Catherine Greene, thereby launching a commitment to collecting superior examples of American art. Since then, the museum has acquired nearly 300 American paintings and approximately 90 sculptures, constituting an excellent survey from around 1750 to 1960. The museum’s historic preference for quality over quantity—a philosophy devoted to acquiring a small number of major works by important artists—has kept the collection particularly well balanced and concise.
ART & ARTISTS
by Whitney Museum of American Art
Early American Landscape
Early American Craft Fair
All the proceeds will benefit Historic Trappe, a non-profit organization whose mission is to preserve and share historic places, landscapes, and heritage of southeastern Pennsylvania. Historic Trappe proudly supports traditional artisans throughout the year in its museum store and exhibits fine Americana and folk art in its museums.
Unfolding Metamorphosis, or the Early American Tactile Image
by THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS JOURNALS
This article uncovers the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century media genre of the “tactile image,” pictures designed to engage hand and eye in tandem. In 1787, a lift-the-flap engraving known as the Metamorphosis was published in Philadelphia, and it quickly multiplied in print and manuscript form. Designed by schoolteacher Benjamin Sands, the flap book’s focused choreography of vision and touch both emerged from and contributed to a period discourse of hands-on pedagogy. Reconstructing the Metamorphosis’s collisions with practices ranging from sampler embroidery to trompe l’oeil painting, I contend that the tactile image makes visible an early national conceptual framework of sensory observation and discernment that reached far beyond the classroom.
The Hudson River School and the Lure of the West
The museum’s collection charts the nation’s growth from a young republic to an emerging world power. Landscapes extolling the nation’s geographic wonders from Niagara Falls to the Grand Canyon drove and documented westward expansion. Asher Durand’s painting Dover Plains, Dutchess County, New York presents an idyllic landscape where man and nature coexist.
Smithsonian American Art Museum Acquires Extraordinary Early Photography Collection From Larry J. West
by News Release 17/8/21 Smithsonian
The Smithsonian American Art Museum has acquired a collection of objects related to early American photography from the collector Larry J. West that transforms the museum’s photography holdings. The L.J. West Collection includes 286 objects from the 1840s to about 1925 in three groupings: works by early African American daguerreotypists James P. Ball, Glenalvin Goodridge and Augustus Washington; early photographs of diverse portrait subjects and objects related to abolitionists, the Underground Railroad and the role of women entrepreneurs in it; and photographic jewelry that represents the bridge between miniature painting and early cased photography such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes.
Painted with Silk: The Art of Early American Embroidery
by DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS 13/12/24
This exhibition juxtaposes a large group of embroideries made by American girls and young women between 1740 and 1830, with contemporary embroideries by Elaine Reichek, revealing changing attitudes toward gender, race and class.
American Art
American painting is the focus of the Georgia Museum of Art’s collection of American art, which began with a donation of 100 American paintings by the museum’s founder. Nineteenth-century works include those by George Cooke, Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, George Inness, Elizabeth Jane Gardner, James McNeill Whistler, Childe Hassam and Frederick Frieseke.
American Women Artists: 1830-1930
NMWA opened officially on April 7, 1987, with the premiere of a major exhibition titled American Women Artists, 1830-1930. Assembled by distinguished scholar and lecturer Dr. Eleanor M. Tufts, the inaugural exhibition featured 124 paintings and sculptures created by American women artists during the late 19th and early 20th century.
Art History Lecture Series: American Art from The Revolution to 1850
This series explores the rise of American art history from the country’s founding into the early 19th century. Topics include landscape and genre painting, as well as the emerging generation of new artists who captured the spirit of young America and helped establish the nation’s developing cultural identity.
Welcome to First Americans Museum
In one place, visitors experience the collective histories of 39 distinctive First American Nations in Oklahoma today. The 175,000 square foot museum, located in Oklahoma City’s new Horizons District, showcases state-of-the-art exhibitions in First American history, community events and educational programs, a restaurant and café offering unique Indigenous-inspired cuisine, a multi-purpose theater and a museum store featuring exclusive items created by premiere First American artists.
American Art Galleries
by YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY
The Yale University Art Gallery’s American paintings and sculpture collection was reinstalled in summer 2017, refreshing the presentation of the Gallery’s renowned collection of American fine art from the colonial period to the early 20th century. The new layouts of the Richard and Jane Manoogian Foundation Galleries of American Art before 1900 and the Mary Jo and Ted Shen Gallery have reoriented the story of American art for our visitors, and the display was also conceived with the flexibility to integrate rotations of light-sensitive artworks that showcase the richness and depth of the Gallery’s collection. We hope that you will come, enjoy, rediscover old favorites, and find some new ones.
Dancing in the Flames
by Jennifer Van Horn THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS JOURNALS
This essay investigates a pair of early American andirons that depict identical African figures, each holding a decanter and wine glass. Manufactured by enslaved laborers at an unidentified iron foundry, the andirons depict Black bodies laboring in service. The andirons resemble contemporary representations of enslaved attendants serving White subjects in portraits, as well as woodblock-printed figures that decorated newspaper advertisements for slave auctions. Yet because of their materiality, they complicated the fantasies these visual artifacts proclaim.
The New Early American Art Galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Investigating and Interpreting Art Objects' "Original Effects"
After a two-year hiatus due to the Covid 19 pandemic, the Mellon-funded Penn/PMA object study workshops resumed in fall 2021 with a session focused on the newly installed Early American Art galleries at the PMA. A morning meeting was devoted to background presentations via Zoom followed by afternoon in-person discussions in the galleries.
Virginia Steele Scott Galleries
While Henry E. Huntington envisioned a collection of American art as early as 1919, his vision was not realized until 60 years later. In 1979, the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation made a major gift to The Huntington in memory of Virginia Steele Scott, an art collector, patron, and philanthropist. The gift included a group of 50 American paintings, funds to construct a gallery to display the collection, and an endowment for its professional management.
Early American Portraits
This user gallery has been created by an independent third party and may not represent the views of the institutions whose collections include the featured works or of Google Arts & Culture.
The Historic Landmark Building is temporarily closed for renovations as of July 8, 2024 and will reopen in Spring 2026 with a major exhibition
From the Schuylkill to the Hudson: Landscapes of the Early American Republic will delve into the important and underexplored tradition of landscape representation in Philadelphia from the Early American Republic to the Centennial Exhibition (1876) and how that corpus shaped the better-known Hudson River School. Philadelphia's key role in the growth of American landscape painting has never been the subject of a major museum exhibition. PAFA's exhibition, along with the accompanying catalog, will illuminate the growth of the genre from its roots, through its rise into the public consciousness.
Early American, Tea Cakes and Sherry
by Sharon Core NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN ARTS
Sharon Core, Early American, Tea Cakes and Sherry, 2007; Chromogenic color print, 13 3/4 x 17 1/2 x 1 3/4 in; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Heather and Tony Podesta Collection; © Sharon Core; Courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York; Photo by Lee Stalsworth
American Decorative Arts
by YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY
The Gallery’s collection of American decorative arts ranges in date from about A.D. 1000 to the present day, with the earliest objects representing the art of Indigenous people who lived in North America before European settlement. Its particular strengths are in the colonial and early Federal periods, due in large part to generous gifts from Francis P. Garvan, B.A. 1897. Yale’s collection of early silver is noted for superior examples from New England, New York, and Philadelphia.
A Deaf Artist in Early America: The Worlds of John Brewster Jr.
John Brewster Jr. (1766–1854) was a deaf portrait painter who created beautiful and ethereal images of American people during the formative period of the nation. This is the first major exhibition in more than forty years to highlight Brewster’s extraordinary life and work. Born in Hampton, Connecticut, Brewster helped create a style of American portraiture that came to dominate rural New England.
(un)Redact the Facts in the Art Museum World: A Great Step in the Evolution of Museum Interpretations with Room for Growth at the American Folk Art Museum
by k. kennedy Whiters COMMON PLACE
The introductory interpretative panel for the exhibit sets the tone for what the visitor will experience for the next one to two hours: a fuller story about the artwork that depicts the history of the early American North. I commend the racially diverse curatorial team on their efforts in evolving museum interpretation with racially equitable grammar and language that tells a fuller story for restorative justice in the museum and history fields. While there is much to applaud, the Black figures are not the only “unnamed figures” in this exhibit. For true restorative justice, missing are the White historians and museum professionals who caused the Black figures to be labeled as “unnamed” for professionals and the general public to hold them accountable for their actions.
Jonathan and Karin Fielding Collection
The Fielding Collection of Early American Art is an esteemed group of American works from the period 1680 to around 1870. Numbering in the hundreds of objects, the collection includes important examples of painted portraits, furniture, needlework, painted boxes, quilts, and related decorative art. The collection also focuses on beautiful objects made for everyday living by mostly rural New Englanders: lighting devices, fire buckets, metal implements, scrimshaw, handwoven rugs, and weathervanes together evoke the rustic yet refined world built by the hands of early Americans.
Beautiful Deceptions
by Philipp Schweighauser Beautiful Deceptions
The art of the early republic abounds in representations of deception: the villains of Gothic novels deceive their victims with visual and acoustic tricks; the ordinary citizens of picaresque novels are hoodwinked by quacks and illiterate but shrewd adventurers; and innocent sentimental heroines fall for their seducers' eloquently voiced half-truths and lies. Yet, as Philipp Schweighauser points out in Beautiful Deceptions, deception happens not only within these novels but also through them. The fictions of Charles Brockden Brown, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Susanna Rowson, Hannah Webster Foster, Tabitha Gilman Tenney, and Royall Tyler invent worlds that do not exist. Similarly, Charles Willson Peale's and Raphaelle Peale's trompe l'oeil paintings trick spectators into mistaking them for the real thing, and Patience Wright's wax sculptures deceive (and disturb) viewers.
Galleries for 18th to Early 20th Century Art
The galleries for 18th to early 20th century art are closed temporarily as part of a multiyear initiative to update SAAM’s permanent collection galleries. They are expected to reopen in Summer 2026.
American Paintings
by John Joseph Enneking 1841-1916 New England Art Exchange
This is a fine impressionist landscape painting by American artist John Joseph Enneking. The subject is a Fall Twilight landscape. It is signed Enneking lower right. The painting measures 22X30 inches. Relined but in very presentable condition. John J. Enneking (1841-1916) "John Joseph Enneking, a man ahead of his time, had a stylistic foot in both the pre-impressionist and impressionist worlds of the late nineteenth century. An 1873 sketch of Madame Monet bears evidence of his work as perhaps America’s earliest impressionist painter.
Gustavus Hesselius, Early American Artist [Winter 2024]
Sam Streit tells us about Gustavus Hesselius, a leading Swedish-born American artist in the mid-Atlantic Colonies during the first half of the 18th century.
Finding Black Founders in Iconic Early American Portraits
Join us for an Art at Noon featuring one of PAFA's iconic early American portraits, George Washington at Princeton (1779) by Charles Willson Peale, to discuss popular images of America's Black Founders through focusing on William Lee, Washington's enslaved valet. Lee was the only person Washington freed immediately in his will, and he did so, as he put it, "for his faithful services during the Revolutionary War." Lee was famous in his own time for his impressive equestrian skills and his role in the Revolution and his image was and is often associated with a painting by Trumbull.
Ten Great American Revolution Paintings, 1790-1860
by THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION INSTITUTE
Choosing just ten great paintings of the American Revolution from this period is a challenge. John Trumbull painted eight iconic scenes of the American Revolution, in addition to dozens of portraits of participants. Some of the others on our list painted several important paintings of the American Revolution. To illustrate the variety of artists involved and wide range of subjects that drew their interest, we have limited our selections to one great painting by each artist. This means that our list doesn’t include Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence or his Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown—unquestionably two of the most important paintings of the American Revolution. This list is no more than an introduction to a rich and varied group of important works, all of which depict major events.
Summary of American Art
The United States' rich artistic history stretches from the earliest indigenous cultures to the more recent globalization of contemporary art. Centuries before the first European colonizers, Native American peoples had crafted ritual and utilitarian objects that reflected the natural environment and their beliefs. After the arrival of Europeans, artists looked to European tendencies in portraiture and landscape painting to craft representations of the new land, but it was not until the middle of the 19th century with the Hudson River School that American artists were considered to have launched a cohesive movement.
Penn's Treaty with the Indians
Commissioned by Thomas Penn, son of Pennsylvania's founder, this painting depicts a legendary meeting between William Penn and members of the Lenni Lenape tribe at Shackamaxon on the Delaware River. Honoring his patron's and his own Quaker heritage, West employed a Neoclassical style to suggest both visual and political harmony.
The High Museum of Art’s historical American Art collection includes over 1,200 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints made by artists working within the United States between 1780 and 1980.
With strengths in historical painting and sculpture, the collection demonstrates the evolution of a distinctly American point of view in artistic representation. From early American portraiture to the splendor of the Gilded Age, the High’s nineteenth-century collection includes excellent examples in landscape and portraiture in addition to one of the largest holdings of American neoclassical marble sculpture. The High holds works by the nation’s most progressive artists of the modern age, including the newly emerging groups of abstract painters, artists concerned with social justice and reform, and artists rooted in figural and narrative works featuring the American scene.
An American dynasty: the Peale family of painters
A Renaissance man who studied under John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West, Charles Willson Peale was best known for his portraits of Revolutionary War heroes and the development of one of the nation’s first museums. He also founded two art academies and was a passionate educator — a practice he shared with his extended family, which included his 17 children. From this forerunner grew an artistic dynasty that established the Peales as some of the premier artists working in the nation’s early years.
An early American art entrepreneur at the Speed
by The Magazine ANTIQUES 17/9/18
The advertisements he placed in local and regional newspapers described “elegant oil paintings by European and American masters in splendid gilt frames” that were ready “for immediate removal to the Parlor.” Let the Thomas Coles and Sanford Giffords of the world woo rich patrons, the artist Thomas Chambers went after aspiring members of the middle class, eager to have tokens of refinement in their home—a sweeping vista of Niagara Falls or the Bay of Naples, or a stirring depiction of a battle at sea.
African American Art
These artworks span three centuries of creative expression in various media, including painting, sculpture, textiles, and photography, and represent numerous artistic styles, from realism to neoclassicism, abstract expressionism, modernism, and folk art. From a rare group of photographs by early African American studios to an important group of works by self-taught artist Bill Traylor to William H. Johnson’s vibrant portrayals of faith and family, to Mickalene Thomas’s contemporary exploration of black female identity, the museum’s holdings reflect its long-standing commitment to Black artists and the acquisition, preservation, and display of their work.
Early American Faces
From the very beginning, American society was composed of people from many different ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. Some were born here, some immigrated of their own accord, and some were forced here in the bonds of slavery. In this compact exhibition guests will encounter faces that represent some of the cultures and populations whose works are on view throughout the facility. Portraits include an American Indian man, an enslaved child, a wife and mother of six, and George Washington, among others.
Joshua Johnson: Portraitist of Early American Baltimore
This exhibition, organized by the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, brings together the work of Joshua Johnson (ca. 1763-1824) for the first time since 1988. Often considered the first professional African-American artist, Johnson was a freed slave who achieved a remarkable degree of success as a portraitist in his lifetime by painting affluent patrons in his native Baltimore. Johnson’s subjects consisted of politicians, doctors, clergymen, merchants, and sea captains. Joshua Johnson: Portraitist of Early American Baltimore contextualizes Johnson both historically and culturally and explores further the key forms of natural symbolism represented in his paintings.
The Daguerreian Era and Early American Photography on Paper, 1839–60
The daguerreotype process, employing a polished silver-plated sheet of copper, was the dominant form of photography for the first twenty years of picture making in the United States.
Art and Society of the New Republic, 1776–1800
The long struggle for independence isolated the country artistically as well as commercially, but the years following the cessation of hostilities with Britain were ones of steady growth. By the time the American Revolution began, many painters had gone abroad in pursuit of professional education and patronage, some never to return. Others, like Charles Willson Peale, who studied in London between 1767 and 1769, returned to Philadelphia and fought in the war.
A Story of Early American Painting Virtual Lecture Series
This course, presented by Kedra Kearis, associate curator of art and visual culture, and offered by the Barnes Foundation, is an introduction to early American painting from the colonial period through the 19th century. Examples will be drawn from Winterthur’s collection of paintings, prints, and wallpapers. What do these works tell us about the tensions and growing alliances between the newly independent United States and former ruler England and new ally France?
History of Early American Landscape Design
The History of Early American Landscape Design digital resource is an inquiry into the language of early American landscape aesthetics and garden design in the colonial and national periods. Thousands of texts are combined with a corpus of more than 1700 images in order to trace the development of landscape and garden terminology from British colonial America to the mid-19th century. By placing terms in relation to representations in the visual record, the project clarifies their use and meanings, providing for well-informed histories of designed landscapes in early America.
Wonder and Enlightenment: Artist-Naturalists in the Early American South
by Northeast Bedroom Gallery REYNOLDA
A spirit of exploration dominated the political and intellectual growth of the country in America’s early centuries, both before and after Independence. The primary form of exploration was the unremitting, conquering movement outward from Eastern ports into the far reaches of the continent. This military expansion had an intellectual corollary in the artists and naturalists who attempted to map their physical world and document in text and image the astonishing variety of flora and fauna native to their new country.
Early American Modernism & Modern Artists
Biographies and analysis of the work of the famous Early American Modernism & Modern Artists. We are adding more artists every week, so stay tuned as the most important artists in the history of art are given proper coverage.
Early American Folk Art Flower Tumbled Stone Tile
As these tiles are cut from real rock, the white flecks and edging on each one will be unique. They are easy to clean, and come with a cork bottom to prevent slipping, and heat transfer.
Gallery Talk: Graven Images—Symbolism of Life and Death on Early American Graves
by harvard Art Museums 31/10/24
Explore the iconography of early American gravestones from New England burial grounds, and gain insight into localized craftsmanship and early American belief systems. These gravestone rubbings are featured in a small installation titled Spiritual Relief, now on view in Gallery 2240.
Art in American Colonies and the United States, c. 1700–1865
by Dr. Bryan Zygmont smarthistory
This chapter covers about 150 years (c. 1700–1865) of art made during a period of dramatic shifts and changes that reflect the cultural fluidity in the American colonies (and later, the United States).
Ten Artworks to Understand Early United States History
The portraitist who popularized the steamship. The failed painter who invented the telegraph. The Black sailor who gave his life to protest British occupation.
Ten Artworks to Understand Early United States History
From the Native peoples lobbying to keep their homelands to immigrants facing challenges in their new home, artists used these works to shape American identity, advocate for change, and reckon with our nation’s stories.
Unseen New England: Re-envisioning Black Presence in Early American Art
by Partnership of Historic Bostons YouTube
American Folk Art Museum curator Emelie Gevalt explores the way that early New England art portrayed - or erased - its Black community
Unit 5: Early Europe and Colonial Americas: 200-1750 C.E.
Medieval artistic traditions include late antique, early Christian, Byzantine, Islamic, migratory, Carolingian*, Romanesque, and Gothic, named for their principal culture, religion, government, and/or artistic style. Continuities and exchanges between coexisting traditions in medieval Europe are evident in shared artistic forms, functions, and techniques. Contextual information comes primarily from literary, theological, and governmental (both secular and religious) records, which vary in quantity according to period and geographical region, and to a lesser extent from archaeological excavations.
CROCKER art museum
The Crocker is renowned for our European master drawings, international ceramics, and the world's foremost display of California art—but our collection spans far beyond.
Arts of the Americas
The Arts of the Americas department stewards a diverse collection of nearly 4,600 objects from North, Central, and South America from 5000 BCE to the present, reflecting the extensive history of artistic production in this hemisphere. The oldest objects attest to the presence of Indigenous communities in the Americas since time immemorial, while the newest grapple with pressing questions of history, tradition, and identity in our interconnected world.
Nineteen American Masterworks
by Smithsonian American Art Museum 10years ago YouTube
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in America were a “coming-of-age” period in American art. Art historian William Kloss explores this special installation of masterworks by Gilded Age, impressionist, and Ashcan school painters.
Highlights from the Fielding Collection of Early American Art: Sheldon Peck Portrait
Jonathan Fielding talks about an untitled portrait painted in the 1820s by Sheldon Peck. The painting was uncovered in 1997 by the popular Antiques Roadshow television series. Peck, an itinerant artist and one of the best-known painters of the time, was an abolitionist, an activist in the temperance movement, and a proponent of universal education.
Art of the American West
by Branding JJ NATIONAL COWBOY & WESTERN HERITAGE MUSEUM
The William S. and Ann Atherton Art of the American West gallery contains outstanding examples of art from the great masters. From Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, W. R. Leigh and Charles Schreyvogel, the 15,000 square foot gallery is packed with paintings, sculptures, illustrations and graphic art that delights the eye and overwhelms the senses.
The Hudson River School
The Hudson River School was America’s first true artistic fraternity. Its name was coined to identify a group of New York City-based landscape painters that emerged about 1850 under the influence of the English émigré Thomas Cole (1801–1848) and flourished until about the time of the Centennial.
10.4: Early American Folk Art (1650 – 1900)
by Deborah Gustlin & Zoe Gustlin
Folk Art refers to art made for utilitarian purposes, for example, rugs, checkerboards, weathervanes, items generally used daily around the home and farm. Small prints or portraits became standard for the primary artist and usually painted by a family member. Handmade folk art was described as rough, rural, ordinary, and inferior, yet a few notable painters can be considered outstanding folk-art painters; Ruth Bascom (1772-1848), Joshua Johnson (1763 – 1824), and Rufus Hathaway (1770 - 1822). Photography had not been invented yet, giving the itinerant painters a market for their work.
Early american paintings
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35 Famous American Paintings You Should Definitely See
by Amanda Wallace 18/7/23 CultureFrontier
The American art scene has gifted us with a treasure trove of renowned paintings that have captivated audiences worldwide. In this article, we invite you to embark on a visual odyssey as we explore 35 extraordinary American paintings that have left a mark on the art world. From the early pioneers of the 18th century to the contemporary visionaries of the 21st century, these masterpieces exemplify the diverse range of styles, themes, and techniques that American artists have employed throughout history.
Folk art of the United States
In colonial America, folk art grew out of artisanal craftsmanship in communities that allowed commonly trained people to individually express themselves, distinct from the high art tradition that dominated Europe, which was less accessible and generally less relevant to American settlers.[4]
Prints of the American Indian, 1670–1775
PERHAPS not strangely, Americans, prior to the opening of the West, showed very little interest in depicting the Indian. So far as I know, only four portraits of Indians were painted in this country before the American Revolution: the portrait of Ninigret, sachem of the Niantics, by an unidentified artist, which descended in the Winthrop family and is now in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum Of Art; the portrait of the Rev. Samson Occom, Eleazar Wheelock’s Indian preacher, by Nathaniel Smibert, now in the Bowdoin College collection; and the portraits of Tishcohan and Lapowinsa, Delaware Indians who had taken part in the notorious “walking purchase” of Indian lands, painted by Gustavus Hesselius for John Penn in 1735 and now in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Early American Paintings and Sculpture
American Folk Art Museum
1735-1790: Painters, Paintings, & the American South
by Editorial Staff 4/3/13 The Magazine ANTIQUES
The history of the paintings and painters associated with the American South begins in the sixteenth century with maps and natural-history drawings created by the first artist-explorers to arrive in the region. By the mid-seventeenth century the southern colonies also boasted portraiture and other types of paintings, all of which increased in number as settlements and populations grew. By the 1750s most painters working in the southern colonies were aware of the best regional markets for their work, and more and more clients were aware of the best available painters.
Upcoming Auctions
A timepiece steeped in history—this 18K tricolor gold Jacquemart automaton quarter repeater pocket watch, purportedly owned by the Marquis de Lafayette, embodies both technical mastery and revolutionary legacy.
Europe's earliest views of America
The painting "Indians of Virginia" by James Wooldridge offers a third-generation view of Algonquian Indians. Created for the Earl of Conway, it's based on late 16th-century prints and watercolors by John White. The artwork combines European artistic conventions with the exotic, presenting a familiar yet intriguing image of the New World.
Early American Art
This document provides information about early American artworks and artists from the 17th to 19th centuries. It discusses how ordinary people produced folk art using materials available to them. When artists tried to capture personalities and emotions in their subjects, this was called portraiture. The document also profiles several prominent American artists from this period including Thomas Cole, who painted landscapes, and John James Audubon, who was both an artist and naturalist who painted birds. It provides context and observations for various paintings shown.
19th Century American Art
A general category for artworks made in the United States between 1800 and 1900. While until 1820 American art was largely derivative of European styles, Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School would develop a distinctive style of painting that highlighted the American landscape, a subject that was later explored and imbued with nationalist themes by Albert Bierstadt during his travels through the American West.
WELCOME TO THE HEARD MUSEUM
Discover the rich and vibrant world of American Indian art, from traditional artworks to contemporary creations, live events and a world-class museum shop and café.
10 American Artists You Should Know
Since the mid 20th century, the United States has been the leader in the art market. The awarding of the Golden Lion to the American Rauschenberg at the 1964 Venice Biennale testifies to the shift in primacy from the School of Paris to the New York School. Today, in addition to its museums with the most prestigious collections, the “Big Apple” is the city with the most galleries. In fact, more than 100,000 artists have set up their studios there, taking advantage of the opportunity to try their luck with more than 1,500 galleries.
The American School: Artists and Status in the Late Colonial and Early National Era
by Marie-Stéphanie Delamaire PARANOMA
New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the Paul Mellon Center for Studies in British Art, 2016; 316 pp.; 100 color illus.; 80 b/w illus.; ISBN: 978-0-300-21461; Hardcover: $75.00
American Paintings
This is a fine impressionist landscape painting by American artist John Joseph Enneking. The subject is a Fall Twilight landscape. It is signed Enneking lower right. The painting measures 22X30 inches. Relined but in very presentable condition. John J. Enneking (1841-1916) "John Joseph Enneking, a man ahead of his time, had a stylistic foot in both the pre-impressionist and impressionist worlds of the late nineteenth century. An 1873 sketch of Madame Monet bears evidence of his work as perhaps America’s earliest impressionist painter. But he also knew Edouard Manet (1824-1898), and studied with the great French Barbizon teacher Charles-Francois Daubigny (1817-1878), as well as with Eugene Boudin (1824-1898)." (Vose)
Early American Modernism & Modern Artists
Biographies and analysis of the work of the famous Early American Modernism & Modern Artists. We are adding more artists every week, so stay tuned as the most important artists in the history of art are given proper coverage.
American Colonial Art | Paintings, Sculptures & Artists
Discover American Colonial Art. Learn about the early American paintings and works produced by colonial artists and artisans in the 1700s, both during and after the American Revolution. Updated: 11/21/2023
American Paintings, 1900–1945
The first curator of the National Gallery of Art, John Walker, and three of its early trustees—Chester Dale, Duncan Phillips, and Paul Mellon—established a commitment to the field of American 20th-century art that has continued to the present day. If American contemporary art was far from a top priority when the Gallery opened in 1941, these “conservative” modernists nonetheless managed to set precedents that proved to be durable and effective.
American Falk Art Museum
American Folk Art Museum is a center of scholarship
European and American Art Before 1900
The department of European and American Art Before 1900 oversees a collection that includes more than 3,000 artworks and is composed of painting, sculpture, and works on paper, with significant strengths in early Italian Renaissance, 19th century French painting, and British art from 1400 to 1900.
19th Century American Art
by MIDWEST MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART
Naive Artists, Limners, and Self-Taught Artists
There was not an immediate need for trained artists in the New World since most of the activities of early settlers and colonists involved survival. As the Seventeenth Century came to a close and the Eighteenth Century was dawning, a need arose within the colonies of America for artists who could paint signs, carve grave markers, paint carriages and furniture, create fanciful documents, and paint portraits to serve as testimonials to wealth and genealogical records of family members.
