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.
Charles Willson Peale was an American painter, soldier, scientist, inventor, politician, and naturalist.
John Trumbull was an American artist of the early independence period, notable for his historical paintings of the American Revolutionary War, of which he was a veteran. He has been called the "Painter of the Revolution".
Rembrandt Peale was an American artist and museum keeper. A prolific portrait painter, he was especially acclaimed for his likenesses of presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Peale's style was influenced by French neoclassicism after a stay in Paris in his early thirties.
Titian Ramsay Peale was an American artist, naturalist, and explorer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a scientific illustrator whose paintings and drawings of wildlife are known for their beauty and accuracy.
The Lansdowne portrait is an iconic life-size portrait of George Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1796. It depicts the 64-year-old president of the United States during his final year in office. The portrait was a gift to former British Prime Minister William Petty, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne, and spent more than 170 years in England.
Raphaelle Peale is considered the first professional American painter of still-life.
James Peale was an American painter, best known for his miniature and still life paintings, and a younger brother of noted painter Charles Willson Peale.
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is a museum of American art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The museum, founded by Alice Walton and designed by Moshe Safdie, officially opened on 11 November 2011. It offers free public admission.
The La Salle University Art Museum is located in the basement of Olney Hall at La Salle University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The museum features six galleries. Collections include European and American art from the Renaissance to the present. Special collections including paper, Japanese prints, rare illustrated Bibles, Indian miniatures, African carvings and implements, Pre-Columbian pottery and Ancient Greek ceramics. Changing exhibits are held of historic and contemporary art drawn from the collections and from outside collections.
Anna Claypoole Peale was an American painter who specialized in portrait miniatures on ivory and still lifes. She and her sister, Sarah Miriam Peale, were the first women elected academicians of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Rubens Peale was an American museum administrator and artist. Born in Philadelphia, he was the son of artist-naturalist Charles Willson Peale. Due to his weak eyesight, he did not practice painting seriously until the last decade of his life, when he painted still life.
Sarah Miriam Peale was an American portrait painter, considered the first American woman to succeed as a professional artist. One of a family of artists of whom her uncle Charles Willson Peale was the most illustrious, Sarah Peale painted portraits mainly of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. notables, politicians, and military figures. Lafayette sat for her four times.
Joseph Wright was an American portrait painter and sculptor. He painted life portraits of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, and was a designer of early U.S. coinage. Wright was President Washington's original choice for Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint, but died at age 37, before being confirmed to that position.
Matthew Pratt was an American "Colonial Era" artist famous for his portraits of American men and women. He was born in Philadelphia, Province of Pennsylvania to goldsmith Henry Pratt, (1708–1748) and Rebecca Claypoole, (1711–1762), he was the second of eight children born to the Pratts.
Anson Dickinson was an American painter of miniature portraits who achieved fame during his lifetime, producing a very large number of works, but who is now largely forgotten.
George Washington, also entitled George Washington and William Lee, is a full-length portrait in oil painted in 1780 by the American artist John Trumbull during the American Revolutionary War. General George Washington stands near his enslaved servant William Lee, overlooking the Hudson River in New York, with West Point and ships in the background. Trumbull, who once served as an aide-de-camp to Washington, painted the picture from memory while studying under Benjamin West in London. He finished it before his arrest for high treason in November. The portrait, measuring 36 in × 28 in, is on view in Gallery 753 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Originally in the possession of the de Neufville family of the Netherlands, it was bequeathed to the museum by Charles Allen Munn in 1924.
Sharon Core is an American artist and photographer. Core first gained recognition with her Thiebauds series (2003-4) in which she created photographic interpretations of American painter Wayne Thiebaud's renderings of food. Two of her works in the Thiebauds series, Candy Counter 1969 (2004) and Confections (2005) were acquired by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2005.
General George Washington at Trenton is a large full-length portrait in oil painted in 1792 by the American artist John Trumbull of General George Washington at Trenton, New Jersey, on the night of January 2, 1777, during the American Revolutionary War. This is the night after the Battle of the Assunpink Creek, also known as the Second Battle of Trenton, and before the decisive victory at the Battle of Princeton the next day. The artist considered this portrait "the best certainly of those which I painted." The portrait is on view at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut, an 1806 gift of the Society of the Cincinnati in Connecticut. It was commissioned by the city of Charleston, South Carolina, but was rejected by the city, resulting in Trumbull painting another version.
Joseph Harrison Jr. was an American mechanical engineer, financier and art collector. He made a fortune building locomotives for Russia, and was decorated by Czar Nicholas I for completing the Saint Petersburg-Moscow Railway.
