Thursday 4 December 2008Treasures of American Art on show in stunning new book

Variations on America: Masterworks from American Art Forum Collections celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the American Art Forum, by presenting seventy-two treasured works of art selected by the curators of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. These include works by some of the leading names in 19th- and 20th-century American art: Sanford Robinson Gifford, Mary Cassatt, Louis Comfort Tiffany, George Bellows, Willem de Kooning, Georgia O’Keefe, James Earl Fraser, John Marin, Andrew Wyeth and David Hockney

In a thought-provoking and accessible style, chief curator Eleanor Jones Harvey, deputy chief curator George Gurney, senior curators Virginia M. Mecklenburg and Joann Moser, former Luce Foundation Center curator George Speer, and curatorial assistant Elaine Yau, put each of the 70 selected works into context and explain its significance in the development of American art. Each work is illustrated in stunning colour and is accompanied by full specifications, provenance, an extended caption and biographical and textual notes.

In six thematic and chronological sections they cover the huge variety of American art: luminous images of nature from the middle years of the nineteenth century, such as Martin Johnson Heade’s Newburyport Meadows I, and fine landscape masterpieces in the Hudson River tradition, including Sanford Robinson Gifford’s The Marshes of the Hudson (1876); light-filled impressionist canvases, such as Mary Cassatt’s Reading “Le Figaro” (1878); dazzling Gilded Age glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany and paintings by John Singer Sargent; gritty Ashcan records from a dynamic New York City, such as George Bellows’s Noon (1908); vivid aesthetic creations of the modern age; the triumphant abstract expressionism of Willem de Kooning; and resonant contemporary works by Andrew Wyeth and David Hockney.

During the twenty years of the Forum’s existence, art of the American West has achieved a major place among art historians and collectors. This is reflected in the inclusion of several major canvases by Georgia O’Keefe, such as Black Cross with Red Sky (1929), John Marin’s Taos Canyon, New Mexico (1929), Cyrus Edwin Dallin’s major statue Appeal to the Great Spirit and James Earl Fraser’s moving bronze sculpture End of the Trail (1918).

The Authors:
Eleanor Jones Harvey is chief curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum. She is the author of The Painted Sketch: American Impressions from Nature (1830–1880) (1998); co-author of Hudson River School Visions: The Landscapes of Sanford R. Gifford (2003) and The Voyage of the Icebergs: Frederic Church’s Arctic Masterpiece (2002). George Gurney is deputy chief curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum. He is co-author of George Catlin and His Indian Gallery (2002) and author of Sculpture Federal Gallery (1985). Virginia Mecklenburg is senior curator, painting and sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum. She is co-author of Edward Hopper: The Watercolors (1999), Frederick Carl Frieseke: The Evolution of An American Impressionist (2001). Joann Moser is senior curator, graphic arts, Smithsonian American Art Museum; author of Singular Impressions (1997). George Speer is former Luce Foundation Center curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum; and Elaine Yau is curatorial assistant, Smithsonian American Art Museum.


192 pages, 10 ½” x 10 ½” (267 x 267mm)
91 colour illustrations, hardback
Text: Up to 46,000 words
ISBN: 978 1 904832 42.3 (13 digit)
Price: US$59.95/UK£29.95
Publication date: June, 2007
Publisher: D. Giles Limited, London

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About the American Art Forum
The American Art Forum, a small group of collectors from across the United States, was begun twenty years ago by Charles C. Eldredge while he was director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. By founding this group, he put the museum in touch with many of the finest collectors of American art. The Forum plays a vital role in introducing collectors to each other and to the rich variety of public museums across the United States. It is an informal conference for the exchange of news and ideas, held in the far-ranging and ever fascinating regions of a vast country. The Forum has visited and explored public and private collections from all of the biggest cities in the United States.