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 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.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City,Missouri,known for its encyclopedic collection of art from nearly every continent and culture,and especially for its extensive collection of Asian art.
Albert Pinkham Ryder was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes,as well as his eccentric personality. While his art shared an emphasis on subtle variations of color with tonalist works of the time,it was unique for accentuating form in a way that some art historians regard as a precursor to modernism.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is a museum in Washington,D.C.,part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum,the Renwick Gallery,SAAM holds one of the world's largest and most inclusive collections of art,from the colonial period to the present,made in the United States. More than 7,000 artists are represented in the museum's collection. Most exhibitions are held in the museum's main building,the Old Patent Office Building,while craft-focused exhibitions are shown in the Renwick Gallery.
Tonalism was an artistic style that emerged in the 1880s when American artists began to paint landscape forms with an overall tone of colored atmosphere or mist. Between 1880 and 1915,dark,neutral hues such as gray,brown or blue,often dominated compositions by artists associated with the style. During the late 1890s,American art critics began to use the term "tonal" to describe these works,as well as the lesser-known synonyms Quietism and Intimism. Two of the leading associated painters were George Inness and James McNeill Whistler.
The Spencer Museum of Art is an art museum operated by the University of Kansas in Lawrence,Kansas,United States.
The Wichita Art Museum is an art museum located in Wichita,Kansas,United States.
Pat Steir is an American painter and printmaker. Her early work was loosely associated with conceptual art and minimalism,however,she is best known for her abstract dripped,splashed and poured "Waterfall" paintings,which she started in the 1980s,and for her later site-specific wall drawings.
James Ormsbee Chapin was an American painter and illustrator. He was the father of jazz musician Jim Chapin and grandfather of folk singer Harry Chapin.
Lloyd Goodrich was an American art historian. He wrote extensively on American artists,including Edward Hopper,Thomas Eakins,Winslow Homer,Raphael Soyer and Reginald Marsh. He was associated with the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City for many years.
Kenneth Hayes Miller was an American painter,printmaker,and teacher.
Achelous and Hercules is a 1947 mural painting by Thomas Hart Benton. It depicts a bluejeans-wearing Hercules wrestling with the horns of a bull,a shape the protean river god Achelous was able to assume. The myth was one of the explanations offered by Greco-Roman mythology for the origin of the cornucopia,a symbol of agricultural abundance. Benton sets the scene during harvest time in the U.S. Midwest.
Paul J. Smith was an arts administrator,curator,and artist based in New York. Smith was professionally involved with the art,craft,and design fields since the early 1950s and was closely associated with the twentieth-century studio craft movement in the United States. He joined the staff of the American Craftsmen's Council in 1957,and in 1963 was appointed Director of the Museum of Contemporary Crafts,a position he held for the next 25 years. In September 1987,he assumed the title of director emeritus and continued to work as an independent curator and consultant for museums,arts organizations,and collectors.
Joyce J. Scott is an African-American artist,sculptor,quilter,performance artist,installation artist,print-maker,lecturer and educator. Named a MacArthur Fellow in 2016,and a Smithsonian Visionary Artist in 2019,Scott is best known for her figurative sculptures and jewelry using free form,off-loom beadweaving techniques,similar to a peyote stitch. Each piece is often constructed using thousands of glass seed beads or pony beads,and sometimes other found objects or materials such as glass,quilting and leather. In 2018,she was hailed for working in new medium —a mixture of soil,clay,straw,and cement —for a sculpture meant to disintegrate and return to the earth. Scott is influenced by a variety of diverse cultures,including Native American and African traditions,Mexican,Czech,and Russian beadwork,illustration and comic books,and pop culture.
Vance Hall Kirkland was a painter and educator in Denver,Colorado. His paintings,from 1926 to 1981,range from realist and impressionist watercolors,to surrealist deadwood worlds,to abstract expressionist mixtures of oil paint and water to richly textured dot paintings in oil. Commenting on Kirkland's works from 1954 to 1981,the director of the Museum of Modern Art,Vienna,Lóránd Hegyi,stated,“... in his later work,he developed a visionary art which mystically empathized with the entire universe,gave cosmic universality visual form in explosive images and used panel painting to convey the perpetually changing state of the universe.”After his death Kirkland Museum of Fine &Decorative Art was founded in his name.
Janetta Rebold Benton is an American art historian. She is currently Distinguished Professor of Art History at Pace University in New York.
Jodi Anne Hauptman is an American art historian and curator. Hauptman is the Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Museum of Modern Art.
Charles "Charlie" Child Eldredge is an American art historian,educator,and curator. Eldredge is the Hall Distinguished Professor of American Art and Culture Emeritus at the University of Kansas. He also served as Director of the Spencer Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum during his career.
Stephanie Antoinette Franziska Stebich is a German-born American art historian and curator. Stebich is currently the Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Janet E. Turner (1914–1988) was an American artist known for her printmaking.
