American Art

Darryl Westly, Axon Body 3 2020.5.25 (George Floyd), 2021, oil on linen, 60h x 72w inches
Darryl Westly: A Dream Deferred

1969 Gallery presents A Dream Deferred, Darryl Westly’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, consisting of oil on linen and canvas paintings made during the tumultuous…

Robert Rauschenberg, Climb (Urban Bourbon), 1993.
Robert Rauschenberg: Channel Surfing
Robert Rauschenberg: Channel Surfing traces the artist’s creation of a visual language that addresses fundamental transformations in media culture in the late 20th-century, a period marked by the…
detail landscape natural bridge painting
Virtual Tour of Virginia Arcadia: The Natural Bridge in American Art

Join Dr. Christopher C. Oliver, Bev Perdue Jennings Assistant Curator of American Art, for a virtual tour of VMFA exhibition Virginia Arcadia: The Natural Bridge in American Art.

Winslow Homer, The Woodcutter, 1891. Watercolor over graphite on wove paper.
Museum of Fine Arts Houston Presents 300 Years of American Art
For nearly 60 years, Houston collector and philanthropist Fayez S. Sarofim has quietly assembled one of the most significant collections of American art in private hands.
Paul Revere, Boston Massacre, 1770. Engraving, hand-colored. Courtesy Collection of the Boston Athanaeum.
Reframed: Paul Revere's “Boston Massacre”
In the special collection of brittle works on paper at the Boston Athenaeum lies Paul Revere’s 1770 hand-colored engraving, The Bloody Massacre.
Supernatural America opened at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio from June 12-September 5, 2021, moves on to the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky October 7, 2021 – January 2, 2022, and then ends in Minneapolis on view from February 19, 2022 - May 15, 2022.
Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art
America is haunted. That is the premise of the first major museum exhibition to take a comprehensive look at the relationship between American artists and the unseen forces that lurk in our cultural…
Maynard Dixon (1875-1946), Land Westward, 1936. 25 x 30 in. US$ 300,000 - 500,000.
Bonhams Presents Three Western and California Art Auctions
Together, these three auctions will present buyers with a rare and wonderful opportunity to acquire paintings and sculpture by many of the leading artists in these collecting fields.
John Sloan, Sunday, Women Drying Their Hair, 1912. Oil on canvas. 26 1/8 in. x 32 1/8 in. (66.36 cm x 81.6 cm). Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA.
Reframed: John Sloan's “Sunday, Women Drying Their Hair”
The July 2021 Focus for Reframed is American Heat

In…

Mary Pickersgill, Star-Spangled Banner, early 19th century. National Museum of American History, Washington D.C.
Reframed: Mary Pickersgill’s Star-Spangled Banner
At what point can an object become art? The opinion that the original "Star-Spangled Banner" is now a work of art is the tried and true view of this "Art & Object" columnist.
A cluster of birches (bottom of trunks only visible in this detail) sprout from the left side of the canvas, on the sloping edge of a woodland stream that is cascading delicately over rocks.
Reframed: Julie Hart Beers' "Birches"
It is an unfortunate fact of art history reporting that artists about whom little is known often stay that way, largely because a lack of juicy details about their lives often makes for dull articles.
View of the painting described in this story. A knarled tree sits in the foreground of the left corner and a storm rages in the distance of this same half.
Reframed: Thomas Cole’s "The Oxbow"
It is fascinatingly unpredictable how some of the biggest brouhahas among cultural critics can be preserved for history, while others are so quickly lost to time.
American gothic, close up of two figures described in story. 
Reframed: Grant Wood’s “American Gothic”
In the summer of 1930, Grant Wood, then age 39, was traveling through the rural town of Eldon, Iowa, searching for artistic inspiration. He spotted a white wooden house in a gothic style, quite at…
Political Cartoons and racial imagery during Reconstruction in America
Understanding a Political Cartoon: Nast & Reconstruction
A conversation between Dr. Kimberly Kutz Elliott and Dr. Beth Harris on Thomas Nast's 1874 cartoon "The Union As It Was—Worse Than Slavery."
Black and white photo of seated Fred Stewart II and Tyler Collins. Both look at camera.
Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America
The exhibition brings together works that address black grief as a national emergency in the face of a politically orchestrated white grievance.
mary cassatt painting of two young girls
Cassatt’s "Two Little Sisters" Breaks Record at Christie's
Mary Cassatt’s painting Two Little Sisters sold on Friday, August 7 for $519,000, making it the highest value lot at an online sale of American art at Christie’s in the five years they’ve…