What IS American Art? Is it an 18th century portrait that captures the pride of a citizen in the newly formed United States? Is it a magnificent landscape that presents a stunning vista of the American West? Perhaps it is a lavish still life that flaunts the wealth of the Gilded Age, or an abstract composition that challenges the eye to dance with it across the canvas.
American art is all of this and much more: a rich and varied visual expression of America’s history and the people and ideas that shaped it. The works represented in American Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts are just a small sampling of the museum’s collection of our nation’s creative heritage. A close and careful look may reveal aspects of the American Experience that will surprise you.
This educational exhibition presents a wide variety of American artists ranging from Charles Willson Peale to Eastman Johnson to Mary Cassatt to Georgia O’Keeffe to Stuart Davis. The works are selected from the permanent collections at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The twelve photographic reproductions plus text panel and wall labels are easy to hang. While this exhibition is perfect for K-12 students, anyone interested in art history and United States history will find the diversity of works fascinating.
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has a variety of exhibitions available for statewide travel. For additional information on VMFA and its statewide resources, please phone 804.204.2681.
LIMITED Security
Loan Period: 4 to 6 Weeks
Fee: Free
Code Number: GA-107
Panel sizes: Varies up to 16″ X 20″
Running Feet: 21′
Boxed weight: 60 lbs.
MEDIA RESOURCES
DVDs:
Against the Odds
American Time Capsule & The Sixties
Andrew Wyeth Self-Portrait: Snow Hill
Andy Warhol: The Complete Picture
Ansel Adams
Art of Romare Bearden
Betye and Alison Saar: Conjure Women of the Arts
Chuck Close: Portrait in Progress
Chuck Close: Close Up
Ed Ruscha: Four Decades
Edward Hopper
Ellsworth Kelly: Fragments
Faith Ringgold: The Last Story Quilt
Faith Ringgold Paints Crown Heights
George Caleb Bingham
Horace Pippin: There Will Be Peace
Jacob Lawrence: The Glory of Expression
Kiki Smith: Squatting the Palace
Life and Art of William H. Johnson
Mary Cassatt: A Brush with Independence
The Natural Palette: The Hudson River Artists and the Land
Painters Painting
Red Grooms: Sculptopicturamatist
Romare Bearden: Visual Jazz
Rothko: An Abstract Humanist
Roy Lichtenstein: Reflections
Sol Lewitt: Four Decades
Thomas Eakins: Scenes from Modern Life
Wayne Thiebaud: Line
VHS Cassettes:
American Visions series
Ben Shahn: A Passion for Justice
George Segal: American Still Life
The Hudson River and its Painters
John Singer Sargent
The Landscapes of Frederick Edwin Church
Norman Rockwell
Thomas Hart Benton’s Missouri
Educator Resource Kits:
Art by African-American Artists: Selections from the Twentieth-Century
20th Century Art