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Visual art of the United States or American art is
visual art The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts ...
made in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
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 (1540-c. 1593) 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. But in the later 18th century two U.S. artists, Benjamin West and
John Singleton Copley John Singleton Copley (July 3, 1738 – September 9, 1815) was an Anglo-American painter, active in both colonial America and England. He was probably born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Anglo-Irish. Afte ...
, became the most successful painters in London of
history painting History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible ...
, then regarded as the highest form of art, giving the first sign of an emerging force in Western art. American artists who remained at home became increasingly skilled, although there was little awareness of them in Europe. In the early 19th century the infrastructure to train artists began to be established, and from 1820 the Hudson River School began to produce Romantic landscape painting that was original and matched the huge scale of U.S. landscapes. The
American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
produced a demand for patriotic art, especially history painting, while other artists recorded the frontier country. A parallel development taking shape in rural U.S. was the American craft movement, which began as a reaction to the
industrial revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
. After 1850
Academic art Academic art, or academicism or academism, is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie ...
in the European style flourished, and as richer Americans became very wealthy, the flow of European art, new and old, to the US began; this has continued ever since. Museums began to be opened to display much of this. Developments in modern art in Europe came to the U.S. from exhibitions in New York City such as the Armory Show in 1913. After World War II, New York replaced Paris as the center of the art world. Since then many U.S. movements have shaped
Modern Modern may refer to: History *Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philosophy ...
and Postmodern art. Art in the United States today covers a huge range of styles.


Beginnings

One of the first painters to visit British America was John White (c. 1540 – c. 1606), who made important
watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...
records of Native American life on the Eastern seaboard (now in the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
). White first visited America as the artist and map-maker for an expedition of exploration, and in the early years of the Colonial period most other artists trained in Western styles were officers in the army and navy, whose training included sketching landscapes. Eventually the English settlements grew large enough to support professional artists, mostly portrait-painters, often largely self-taught. Among the earliest was John Smybert (1688–1751), a trained artist from London who emigrated in 1728 intending to be a professor of fine art, but instead became a portrait painter and printseller in Boston. His friend Peter Pelham was a painter and printmaker. Both needed other sources of income and had shops. Meanwhile, the Spanish territories later to be American could see mostly religious art in the late
Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...
style, mostly by native artists, and Native American cultures continued to produce art in their various traditions.


Eighteenth century

After the
Declaration of Independence A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of th ...
in 1776, which marked the official beginning of the American national identity, the new nation needed a history, and part of that history would be expressed visually. Most of early American art (from the late 18th century through the early 19th century) consists of
history painting History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible ...
and especially
portraits A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For thi ...
. As in Colonial America, many of the painters who specialized in portraits were essentially self-taught; notable among them are
Joseph Badger Joseph Badger (c. 1707–1765) was a portrait artist in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 18th century. He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, to tailor Stephen Badger and Mercy Kettell. He "began his career as a house-painter and glazier, and ... ...
, John Brewster Jr., and
William Jennys William Jennys (1774–1859), also known as J. William Jennys, was an American primitive portrait painter who was active from about 1790 to 1810. He traveled throughout New England seeking commissions in rural areas and small towns. He was t ...
. The young nation's artists generally emulated the style of British art, which they knew through prints and the paintings of English-trained immigrants such as John Smibert (1688–1751) and John Wollaston (active 1742–1775). Robert Feke (1707–1752), an untrained painter of the colonial period, achieved a sophisticated style based on Smibert's example.
Charles Willson Peale Charles Willson Peale (April 15, 1741 – February 22, 1827) was an American Painting, painter, soldier, scientist, inventor, politician and naturalist. He is best remembered for his portrait paintings of leading figures of the American Revolu ...
, who gained much of his earliest art training by studying Smibert's copies of European paintings, painted portraits of many of the important figures of the
American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
. Peale's younger brother
James Peale James Peale (1749 – May 24, 1831) was an American painter, best known for his miniature and still life paintings, and a younger brother of noted painter Charles Willson Peale. Early life Peale was born in Chestertown, Maryland, the second ...
and six of Peale's nieces and sons— Anna Claypoole Peale,
Sarah Miriam Peale Sarah Miriam Peale (May 19, 1800 – February 4, 1885) 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 illu ...
,
Raphaelle Peale Raphaelle Peale (sometimes spelled Raphael Peale) (February 17, 1774 – March 4, 1825) is considered the first professional American painter of still-life. Biography Peale was born in Annapolis, Maryland, the fifth child, though eldest survivin ...
, Rembrandt Peale,
Rubens Peale Rubens Peale (May 4, 1784 – July 17, 1865) 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 ...
and Titian Peale—were also artists. Painters such as
Gilbert Stuart Gilbert Charles Stuart ( Stewart; December 3, 1755 – July 9, 1828) was an American painter from Rhode Island Colony who is widely considered one of America's foremost portraitists. His best-known work is an unfinished portrait of George Washi ...
made portraits of the newly elected government officials,Gilbert Stuart Birthplace and Museum
''Gilbert Stuart Biography''. Accessed July 24, 2007.
which became iconic after being reproduced on various U.S. Postage stamps of the 19th century and early 20th century.
John Singleton Copley John Singleton Copley (July 3, 1738 – September 9, 1815) was an Anglo-American painter, active in both colonial America and England. He was probably born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Anglo-Irish. Afte ...
painted
emblem An emblem is an abstract or representational pictorial image that represents a concept, like a moral truth, or an allegory, or a person, like a king or saint. Emblems vs. symbols Although the words ''emblem'' and '' symbol'' are often use ...
atic
portraits A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For thi ...
for the increasingly prosperous merchant class, including a portrait of '' Paul Revere'' (ca. 1768–1770). The original version of his most famous painting, ''
Watson and the Shark ''Watson and the Shark'' is an oil painting by the American painter John Singleton Copley, depicting the rescue of the English boy Brook Watson from a shark attack in Havana, Cuba. Copley, then living in London, painted three versions. The 17 ...
'' (1778), is in the collection of
The National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...
while there is another version in the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
and a third version in the
Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project comple ...
. Benjamin West painted portraits as well as history paintings of the
French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the st ...
. West also worked in London where many American artists studied under him, including
Washington Allston Washington Allston (November 5, 1779 – July 9, 1843) was an American painter and poet, born in Waccamaw Parish, South Carolina. Allston pioneered America's Romantic movement of landscape painting. He was well known during his lifetime for ...
,
Ralph Earl Ralph Earl (May 11, 1751 – August 16, 1801) was an American painter known for his portraits, of which at least 183 can be documented. He also painted six landscapes, including a panorama display of Niagara Falls. Early life Ralph Ea ...
, James Earl,
Samuel Morse Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph ...
, Charles Willson Peale, Rembrandt Peale, Gilbert Stuart, John Trumbull, Mather Brown, Edward Savage and
Thomas Sully Thomas Sully (June 19, 1783November 5, 1872) was a portrait painter in the United States. Born in Great Britain, he lived most of his life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He painted in the style of Thomas Lawrence. His subjects included nation ...
.
John Trumbull John Trumbull (June 6, 1756November 10, 1843) 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 Re ...
painted large battle scenes of the Revolutionary War. When
landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
was painted it was most often done to show how much property a subject owned, or as a picturesque background for a portrait.


Selection of works by early American artists

File:Jeremiah Theus Portrait of Lady Liberty 1765.jpg, Jeremiah Theus ''Portrait of Lady Liberty'', 1765 File:J S Copley - Paul Revere.jpg,
John Singleton Copley John Singleton Copley (July 3, 1738 – September 9, 1815) was an Anglo-American painter, active in both colonial America and England. He was probably born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Anglo-Irish. Afte ...
, ''Paul Revere'', c. 1768–1770,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
File:Benjamin West - The Treaty of Penn with the Indians - WGA25555.jpg, Benjamin West, '' The Treaty of Penn with the Indians'', 1771–72,
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
File:GSskater.jpg,
Gilbert Stuart Gilbert Charles Stuart ( Stewart; December 3, 1755 – July 9, 1828) was an American painter from Rhode Island Colony who is widely considered one of America's foremost portraitists. His best-known work is an unfinished portrait of George Washi ...
, '' The Skater'', 1782,
National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...
, Washington, D.C. File:Charles Wilson Peale - Self-Portrait with Angelica and Portrait of Rachel - Google Art Project.jpg,
Charles Willson Peale Charles Willson Peale (April 15, 1741 – February 22, 1827) was an American Painting, painter, soldier, scientist, inventor, politician and naturalist. He is best remembered for his portrait paintings of leading figures of the American Revolu ...
, ''Self-portrait'', c. 1782–1785, Museum of Fine Arts Houston File:The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec December 31 1775.jpeg,
John Trumbull John Trumbull (June 6, 1756November 10, 1843) 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 Re ...
, '' The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec, December 31, 1775'', 1786,
Yale University Art Gallery The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...
File:Mather Brown - Thomas Jefferson - Google Art Project.jpg, Mather Brown, ''Portrait of
Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
'', 1786, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. File:Edward Savage - The Washington Family - Google Art Project.jpg, Edward Savage, '' The Washington Family'' 1789–1796,
National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...
, Washington, D.C. File:OliverAbigail.jpg,
Ralph Earl Ralph Earl (May 11, 1751 – August 16, 1801) was an American painter known for his portraits, of which at least 183 can be documented. He also painted six landscapes, including a panorama display of Niagara Falls. Early life Ralph Ea ...
, ''Portrait of Oliver Ellsworth and Abigail Wolcott Ellsworth'', 1792, Wadsworth Atheneum File:The Artist and His Family James Peale.jpeg,
James Peale James Peale (1749 – May 24, 1831) was an American painter, best known for his miniature and still life paintings, and a younger brother of noted painter Charles Willson Peale. Early life Peale was born in Chestertown, Maryland, the second ...
, ''The Artist and His Family'', 1795. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts File:BrewsterMotherSon.jpg, John Brewster Jr., ''Mother with Son'' (Lucy Knapp Mygatt and Son, George, of
Danbury, Connecticut Danbury is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located approximately northeast of New York City. Danbury's population as of 2022 was 87,642. It is the seventh largest city in Connecticut. Danbury is nicknamed the "Hat Cit ...
), 1799 File:Rembrandt Peale - Rubens Peale with a Geranium - Google Art Project.jpg, Rembrandt Peale, ''Rubens Peale With a Geranium'', 1801,
National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...
, Washington, D.C. File:Moonlit Landscape.jpg,
Washington Allston Washington Allston (November 5, 1779 – July 9, 1843) was an American painter and poet, born in Waccamaw Parish, South Carolina. Allston pioneered America's Romantic movement of landscape painting. He was well known during his lifetime for ...
, ''Moonlit Landscape'', 1809,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
, Massachusetts File:Mather Brown self-portrait.jpg, Mather Brown, ''Self-portrait'', c. 1812,
American Antiquarian Society The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and a national research library of pre-twentieth-century American history and culture. Founded in 1812, it is the oldest historical society i ...
,
Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 census, making it the second- most populous city in New England after ...
File:Benjamin West, English (born America) - Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky - Google Art Project.jpg, Benjamin West, '' Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky'', c. 1816,
Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin ...
File:1819 Passage OfThe Delaware byThomasSully MFABoston.jpeg,
Thomas Sully Thomas Sully (June 19, 1783November 5, 1872) was a portrait painter in the United States. Born in Great Britain, he lived most of his life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He painted in the style of Thomas Lawrence. His subjects included nation ...
, '' The Passage of the Delaware'', 1819,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...


Nineteenth century

The first well-known U.S. school of painting—the Hudson River School—appeared in 1820.
Thomas Cole Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history painti ...
pioneered the movement which included
Albert Bierstadt Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not ...
,
Frederic Edwin Church Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, ...
, Thomas Doughty and several others. As with music and literature, this development was delayed until artists perceived that the New World offered subjects unique to itself; in this case the westward expansion of settlement brought the transcendent beauty of frontier landscapes to painters' attention. The Hudson River painters' directness and simplicity of vision influenced and inspired such later artists as
John Kensett John Frederick Kensett (March 22, 1816 – December 14, 1872) was an American landscape painter and engraver born in Cheshire, Connecticut. He was a member of the second generation of the Hudson River School of artists. Kensett's signature works ...
and the '' Luminists''; as well as
George Inness George Inness (May 1, 1825 – August 3, 1894) was a prominent American landscape painter. Now recognized as one of the most influential American artists of the nineteenth century, Inness was influenced by the Hudson River School at the s ...
and the '' tonalists'' (which included
Albert Pinkham Ryder Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, 1847 – March 28, 1917) 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 ...
and Ralph Blakelock among others), and Winslow Homer (1836–1910), who depicted the rural U.S.—the sea, the mountains, and the people who lived near them. The Hudson River School landscape painter Robert S. Duncanson was one of the first important African American painters.
John James Audubon John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin; April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was an American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictori ...
, an
ornithologist Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...
whose paintings documented birds, was one of the most important naturalist artists in the early U.S. His major work, a set of colored prints entitled ''
The Birds of America ''The Birds of America'' is a book by naturalist and painter John James Audubon, containing illustrations of a wide variety of birds of the United States. It was first published as a series in sections between 1827 and 1838, in Edinburgh an ...
'' (1827–1839), is considered one of the finest ornithological works ever completed. Edward Hicks was a U.S. folk painter and distinguished minister of the
Society of Friends Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...
. He became a Quaker
icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The mos ...
because of his paintings. Paintings of the Great West, many of which emphasized the sheer size of the land and the cultures of the native people living on it, became a distinct genre as well.
George Catlin George Catlin (July 26, 1796 – December 23, 1872) was an American adventurer, lawyer, painter, author, and traveler, who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the Old West. Traveling to the American West five times during the 18 ...
depicted the West and its people as honestly as possible. George Caleb Bingham, and later
Frederic Remington Frederic Sackrider Remington (October 4, 1861 – December 26, 1909) was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in the genre of Western American Art. His works are known for depicting the Western United Sta ...
,
Charles M. Russell Charles Marion Russell (March 19, 1864 – October 24, 1926), also known as C. M. Russell, Charlie Russell, and "Kid" Russell, was an American artist of the American Old West. He created more than 2,000 paintings of cowboys, Native Americans, an ...
, the photographer Edward S. Curtis, and others recorded the U.S. Western heritage and the
Old American West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...
through their art.
History painting History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible ...
was a less popular genre in U.S. art during the 19th century, although '' Washington Crossing the Delaware'', painted by the German-born Emanuel Leutze, is among the best-known U.S. paintings. The historical and military paintings of William B. T. Trego were widely published after his death (according to Edwin A. Peeples, "There is probably not an American History book which doesn't have (a) Trego picture in it"). Portrait painters in the U.S. in the 19th century included untrained limners such as
Ammi Phillips Ammi Phillips (April 24, 1788 – July 11, 1865) was a prolific American itinerant portrait painter active from the mid 1810s to the early 1860s in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. His artwork is identified as folk art, primitive art, p ...
, and painters schooled in the European tradition, such as Thomas Sully and G.P.A. Healy. Middle-class city life found its painter in Thomas Eakins (1844–1916), an uncompromising realist whose unflinching honesty undercut the genteel preference for romantic sentimentalism. As a result, he was not notably successful in his lifetime, although he has since been recognized as one of the most significant U.S. artists. One of his students was
Henry Ossawa Tanner Henry Ossawa Tanner (June 21, 1859 – May 25, 1937) was an American artist and the first African-American painter to gain international acclaim. Tanner moved to Paris, France, in 1891 to study at the Académie Julian and gained acclaim in Fren ...
, the first African-American painter to achieve international acclaim. A
trompe-l'œil ''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...
style of
still-life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, bo ...
painting, originating mainly in Philadelphia, included Raphaelle Peale (one of several artists of the Peale family),
William Michael Harnett William Michael Harnett (August 10, 1848 – October 29, 1892) was an Irish-American painter known for his trompe-l'œil still lifes of ordinary objects. Early life Harnett was born in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland during the time of the Gr ...
, and John F. Peto. The most successful U.S. sculptor of his era,
Hiram Powers Hiram Powers (July 29, 1805 – June 27, 1873) was an American neoclassical sculptor. He was one of the first 19th-century American artists to gain an international reputation, largely based on his famous marble sculpture ''The Greek Slave''. ...
, left the U.S. in his early thirties to spend the rest of his life in Europe, where he adopted a conventional style for his idealized female nudes such as ''Eve Tempted''. Several important painters who are considered American spent much of their lives in Europe, notably
Mary Cassatt Mary Stevenson Cassatt (; May 22, 1844June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar De ...
,
James McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...
, and
John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...
, all of whom were influenced by French
Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passa ...
. Theodore Robinson visited France in 1887, befriended Monet, and became one of the first U.S. painters to adopt the new technique. In the last decades of the century American Impressionism, as practiced by artists such as Childe Hassam and Frank W. Benson, became a popular style.


Selection of notable 19th-century works

Image:Edward Hicks - Peaceable Kingdom.jpg, Edward Hicks, ''Peaceable Kingdom,'' c. 1834,
National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...
File:John James Audubon - Washington Sea Eagle.jpg,
John J. Audubon John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin; April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was an American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictoria ...
, ''Washington Sea Eagle'', c. 1836–1839,
Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...
Image:George Caleb Bingham 001.jpg, George Caleb Bingham, '' Fur Traders Descending the Missouri'', c. 1845,
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
File:George Catlin - Ball-play of the Choctaw--Ball Up - Google Art Project.jpg,
George Catlin George Catlin (July 26, 1796 – December 23, 1872) was an American adventurer, lawyer, painter, author, and traveler, who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the Old West. Traveling to the American West five times during the 18 ...
, ''An Indian Ball-Play'' c. 1846–1850,
Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...
File:George Caleb Bingham - Daniel Boone escorting settlers through the Cumberland Gap.jpg, George Caleb Bingham, ''Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers through the Cumberland Gap'', 1851–52 File:A Ride for Liberty -- The Fugitive Slaves (recto) Eastman Johnson.jpg, Eastman Johnson, '' A Ride for Liberty – The Fugitive Slaves'', oil on paperboard, ca. 1862,
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Cro ...
Image:Frederic Edwin Church - Aurora Borealis - Google Art Project.jpg,
Frederic Edwin Church Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, ...
, ''Aurora Borealis'', 1865,
Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...
, Washington, D.C. File:George Inness - Lake Albano - Google Art Project.jpg,
George Inness George Inness (May 1, 1825 – August 3, 1894) was a prominent American landscape painter. Now recognized as one of the most influential American artists of the nineteenth century, Inness was influenced by the Hudson River School at the s ...
, ''Lake Albano'', 1869. Phillips Collection Image:Kensett John F The Old Pine Darien Connecticut.jpg,
John Kensett John Frederick Kensett (March 22, 1816 – December 14, 1872) was an American landscape painter and engraver born in Cheshire, Connecticut. He was a member of the second generation of the Hudson River School of artists. Kensett's signature works ...
, ''The Old Pine,
Darien, Connecticut Darien ( ) is a coastal town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. With a population of 21,499 and a land area of just under 13 square miles, it is the smallest town on Connecticut's Gold Coast. It has the youngest population of any ...
'', c. 1872,
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
,
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
File:James Abbot McNeill Whistler 006.jpg,
James Abbott McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...
, '' Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge'' (1872),
Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
, London, England File:Thomas Eakins, American - Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic) - Google Art Project.jpg, Thomas Eakins, '' The Gross Clinic'', 1875,
Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin ...
and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts File:The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, John Singer Sargent, 1882 (unfree frame crop).jpg,
John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...
, '' The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit'', 1882,
Boston Museum of Fine Arts The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
File:The Waste of Waters is Their Field.jpg,
Albert Pinkham Ryder Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, 1847 – March 28, 1917) 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 ...
, ''The Waste of Waters is Their Field'', early 1880s, Brooklyn Museum File:Brooklyn Museum - Moonlight - Ralph Albert Blakelock - overall.jpg, Ralph Albert Blakelock, ''Moonlight'', 1885,
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Cro ...
File:Albert Pinkham Ryder - Moonlit Cove - Google Art Project.jpg,
Albert Pinkham Ryder Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, 1847 – March 28, 1917) 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 ...
, ''Seacoast in Moonlight,'' 1890, the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. File:Ralph Albert Blakelock - Moonlight Sonata - 45.201 - Museum of Fine Arts.jpg, Ralph Albert Blakelock, ''Moonlight Sonata'', 1889–1892,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
Image:Celia Thaxter's Garden.jpg, Childe Hassam, '' Celia Thaxter's Garden'', 1890,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
,
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
File:Frederic Remington - Aiding a Comrade - Google Art Project.jpg,
Frederic Remington Frederic Sackrider Remington (October 4, 1861 – December 26, 1909) was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in the genre of Western American Art. His works are known for depicting the Western United Sta ...
, ''Aiding a Comrade'', 1890,
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Buil ...
File:Russell The Buffalo Hunt No 26 1899.jpg,
Charles M. Russell Charles Marion Russell (March 19, 1864 – October 24, 1926), also known as C. M. Russell, Charlie Russell, and "Kid" Russell, was an American artist of the American Old West. He created more than 2,000 paintings of cowboys, Native Americans, an ...
, ''The Buffalo Hunt'', 1899, Amon Carter Museum of American Art File:Winslow Homer - The Gulf Stream - Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg, Winslow Homer, '' The Gulf Stream'', 1899, '' oil on canvas,''
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
,
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...


Twentieth century

Controversy soon became a way of life for American artists. In fact, much of American painting and sculpture since 1900 has been a series of revolts against tradition. "To hell with the artistic values," announced Robert Henri (1865–1929). He was the leader of what critics called the Ashcan school of painting, after the group's portrayals of the squalid aspects of city life.
American realism American Realism was a style in art, music and literature that depicted contemporary social realities and the lives and everyday activities of ordinary people. The movement began in literature in the mid-19th century, and became an important te ...
became the new direction for American visual artists at the turn of the 20th century. The Ashcan painters
George Bellows George Wesley Bellows (August 12 or August 19, 1882 – January 8, 1925) was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City. He became, according to the Columbus Museum of Art, "the most acclaimed Ame ...
, Everett Shinn, George Benjamin Luks, William Glackens, and John Sloan were among those who developed socially conscious imagery in their works. The photographer
Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...
(1864–1946) led the Photo-Secession movement, which created pathways for photography as an emerging art form. Soon the Ashcan school artists gave way to modernists arriving from Europe—the cubists and abstract painters promoted by Stieglitz at his
291 Gallery 291 is the commonly known name for an internationally famous art gallery that was located in Midtown Manhattan at 291 Fifth Avenue in New York City from 1905 to 1917. Originally called the "Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession", the gallery wa ...
in New York City.
John Marin John Marin (December 23, 1870 – October 2, 1953) was an early American modernist artist. He is known for his abstract landscapes and watercolors. Biography Marin was born in Rutherford, New Jersey. His mother died nine days after his birth ...
, Marsden Hartley, Alfred Henry Maurer,
Arthur B. Carles Arthur Beecher Carles (March 9, 1882 – 1952) was an American Modernist painter. Biography Carles was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts between 1900 and 1907. He studied with Thomas Pol ...
, Arthur Dove, Henrietta Shore, Stuart Davis, Wilhelmina Weber, Stanton Macdonald-Wright,
Morgan Russell Morgan Russell (January 25, 1886 – May 29, 1953) was a modern American artist. With Stanton Macdonald-Wright, he was the founder of Synchromism, a provocative style of abstract painting that dates from 1912 to the 1920s. Russell's "synchromie ...
, Patrick Henry Bruce, Andrew Dasburg,
Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...
, and Gerald Murphy were some important early American modernist painters. Early modernist sculptors in America include William Zorach,
Elie Nadelman Elie Nadelman (born Eliasz Nadelman; February 20, 1882 – December 28, 1946) was a Polish-American sculptor, draughtsman and collector of folk art. Early years Nadelman was born and studied briefly in Warsaw and then visited Munich in 1902 ...
, and Paul Manship. Florine Stettheimer developed an extremely personal faux-naif style. After
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
many American artists rejected the
modern Modern may refer to: History *Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philosophy ...
trends emanating from the Armory Show and European influences such as those from the
School of Paris The School of Paris (french: École de Paris) refers to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century. The School of Paris was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importan ...
. Instead they chose to adopt various—in some cases
academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
—styles of
realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: * Classical Realism *Literary realism, a mov ...
in depicting American urban and rural scenes.
Grant Wood Grant DeVolson Wood (February 13, 1891 February 12, 1942) was an American painter and representative of Regionalism, best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest. He is particularly well known for ''American Gothic'' (1930 ...
, Reginald Marsh, Guy Pène du Bois, and
Charles Sheeler Charles Sheeler (July 16, 1883 – May 7, 1965) was an American artist known for his Precisionist paintings, commercial photography, and the avant-garde film, '' Manhatta'', which he made in collaboration with Paul Strand. Sheeler is recognized ...
exemplify the realist tendency in different ways. Sheeler and the modernists
Charles Demuth Charles Henry Buckius Demuth (November 8, 1883 – October 23, 1935) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors and turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism. "Search the history of Ame ...
and Ralston Crawford were referred to as Precisionists for their sharply defined renderings of machines and architectural forms.
Edward Hopper Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Hopper created subdued drama ...
, who studied under Henri, developed an individual style of realism by concentrating on light and form, and avoiding overt social content.


The American Southwest

Following the
first World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, the completion of the
Santa Fe Railroad The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and ...
enabled American settlers to travel across the west, as far as the
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
coast. New artists' colonies started growing up around Santa Fe and
Taos Taos or TAOS may refer to: Places * Taos, Missouri, a city in Cole County, Missouri, United States * Taos County, New Mexico, United States ** Taos, New Mexico, a city, the county seat of Taos County, New Mexico *** Taos art colony, an art colo ...
, the artists' primary subject matter being the native people and landscapes of the Southwest. Images of the Southwest became a popular form of advertising, used most significantly by the Santa Fe Railroad to entice settlers to come west and enjoy the "unsullied landscapes."
Walter Ufer Walter Ufer (July 22, 1876 – August 2, 1936) was an American artist based in Taos, New Mexico, Taos, New Mexico. His most notable work focuses on scenes of Native Americans in the United States, Native American life, particularly of the Pue ...
, Bert Geer Phillips, E. Irving Couse,
William Henry Jackson William Henry Jackson (April 4, 1843 – June 30, 1942) was an American photographer, Civil War veteran, painter, and an explorer famous for his images of the American West. He was a great-great nephew of Samuel Wilson, the progenitor of Am ...
, Marsden Hartley, Andrew Dasburg, and
Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...
were some of the more prolific artists of the Southwest. Georgia O'Keeffe, who was born in the late 19th century, became known for her paintings featuring flowers, bones, and landscapes of
New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Albuquerque metropolitan area, Tiguex , Offi ...
as seen in ''Ram's Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills''. O'Keeffe visited the Southwest in 1929 and moved there permanently in 1949; she lived and painted there until she died in 1986.


Harlem Renaissance (1920s-1930s)

The
Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the t ...
was another significant development in American art. In the 1920s and 30s a new generation of educated and politically astute African-American men and women emerged who sponsored literary societies and art and industrial exhibitions to combat racist stereotypes. The movement, which showcased the range of talents within African-American communities, included artists from across America, but was centered in
Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...
. The work of the Harlem painter and
graphic art A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional, i.e. produced on a flat surface.
ist Aaron Douglas and the photographer James VanDerZee became emblematic of the movement. Artists associated with the Harlem Renaissance include
Romare Bearden Romare Bearden (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an American artist, author, and songwriter. He worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils, and collages. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up in New York City a ...
,
Jacob Lawrence Jacob Armstead Lawrence (September 7, 1917 – June 9, 2000) was an American painter known for his portrayal of African-American historical subjects and contemporary life. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", although by his own ac ...
, Charles Alston,
Augusta Savage Augusta Savage (born Augusta Christine Fells; February 29, 1892 – March 27, 1962) was an American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She was also a teacher whose studio was important to the careers of a generation of artists who w ...
, Archibald Motley, Lois Mailou Jones,
Palmer Hayden Palmer C. Hayden (January 15, 1890 – February 18, 1973) was an American painter who depicted African-American life, landscapes, seascapes, and African influences. He sketched, painted in both oils and watercolors, and was a prolific arti ...
and Sargent Johnson.


New Deal art (1930s)

When the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
worsened, president Roosevelt's
New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Con ...
created several public arts programs. The purpose of the programs was to give work to artists and decorate public buildings, usually with a national theme. The first of these projects, the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), was created after successful lobbying by the unemployed artists of the Artists Union. The PWAP lasted less than one year, and produced nearly 15,000 works of art. It was followed by the
Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...
of the
Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
(FAP/WPA) in 1935, which funded some of the most well-known
American artists American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
.Eric Arnesen, ed. ''Encyclopedia of U.S. labor and working-class history'' (2007) vol. 1 p. 1540 The style of much of the public art commissioned by the WPA was influenced by the work of
Diego Rivera Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...
and other artists of the contemporary Mexican muralism movement. Several separate and related movements began and developed during the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
including
American scene painting American Regionalism is an American realist modern art movement that included paintings, murals, lithographs, and illustrations depicting realistic scenes of rural and small-town America primarily in the Midwest. It arose in the 1930s as a respo ...
, Regionalism, and Social Realism. Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry,
Grant Wood Grant DeVolson Wood (February 13, 1891 February 12, 1942) was an American painter and representative of Regionalism, best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest. He is particularly well known for ''American Gothic'' (1930 ...
,
Maxine Albro Maxine Albro (January 20, 1893 – July 19, 1966) was an American painter, muralist, lithographer, mosaic artist, and sculptor. She was one of America's leading female artists, and one of the few women commissioned under the New Deal's Federal A ...
,
Ben Shahn Ben Shahn (September 12, 1898 – March 14, 1969) was an American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as ''The Shape of Content''. Biography Shahn was bor ...
,
Joseph Stella Joseph Stella (born Giuseppe Michele Stella, June 13, 1877 – November 5, 1946) was an Italian-born American Futurist painter best known for his depictions of industrial America, especially his images of the Brooklyn Bridge. He is also ...
, Reginald Marsh,
Isaac Soyer Isaac Soyer (April 26, 1902 – July 8, 1981) was a Russian-born American social realist painter and educator. His art work often portrayed working-class people of New York City in his paintings. Biography He was born as Isaac Schoar on April 26, ...
, Raphael Soyer, Spencer Baird Nichols and Jack Levine were some of the best-known artists. Not all of the artists who emerged in the years between the wars were Regionalists or Social Realists;
Milton Avery Milton Clark Avery (March 7, 1885 – January 3, 1965Haskell, B. (2003). "Avery, Milton". Grove Art Online.) was an American modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City. He was the husba ...
's paintings, often nearly abstract, had a significant influence on several of the younger artists who would soon become known as Abstract Expressionists. Joseph Cornell, inspired by
Surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...
, created boxed assemblages incorporating found objects and
collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an Assemblage (art), assemblage of different forms, thus creat ...
.


Abstract expressionism

In the years after World War II, a group of New York artists formed the first American movement to exert major influence internationally:
abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
. This term, which had first been used in 1919 in Berlin, was used again in 1946 by Robert Coates in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', and was taken up by the two major art critics of that time,
Harold Rosenberg Harold Rosenberg (February 2, 1906 – July 11, 1978) was an American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic. He coined the term Action Painting in 1952 for what was later to be known as abstract expressionism. Rosenberg is best known for ...
and
Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...
. It has always been criticized as too large and paradoxical, yet the common definition implies the use of
abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 1 ...
to express feelings, emotions, what is within the artist, and not what stands without. The first generation of abstract expressionists included
Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionism, abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splas ...
,
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
,
Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...
, Franz Kline,
Arshile Gorky Arshile Gorky (; born Vostanik Manoug Adoian, hy, Ոստանիկ Մանուկ Ատոյեան; April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian-American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. He spent the last years of hi ...
,
Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of the New York School, which also inc ...
, Clyfford Still,
Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense o ...
, Adolph Gottlieb,
Phillip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...
, Ad Reinhardt, James Brooks, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes,
Mark Tobey Mark George Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American painter. His densely structured compositions, inspired by Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism, although the motives for his compositions differ philosophi ...
, Bradley Walker Tomlin,
Theodoros Stamos Theodoros Stamos (Greek: Θεόδωρος Στάμος) (December 31, 1922 – February 2, 1997) was a Greek-American painter. He is one of the youngest painters of the original group of abstract expressionist painters (the so-called " Irasc ...
,
Jack Tworkov Jack Tworkov (15 August 1900 – 4 September 1982) was an American abstract expressionist painter. Biography Yakov Tworkovsky, more commonly known as Jack Tworkov, was born in Biała Podlaska on the border between Poland and the Russian Empi ...
,
Wilhelmina Weber Furlong Wilhelmina Weber Furlong (1878–1962) was a German American artist and teacher.The Biography of Wilhelmina Weber Furlong: The Treasured Collection of Golden Heart Farm by Clint B. Weber, Among America's earliest avant-garde elite modernist p ...
, David Smith, and
Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...
, among others.
Milton Avery Milton Clark Avery (March 7, 1885 – January 3, 1965Haskell, B. (2003). "Avery, Milton". Grove Art Online.) was an American modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City. He was the husba ...
, Lee Krasner, Louise Bourgeois,
Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and hi ...
, Tony Smith, Morris Graves and others were also related, important and influential artists during that period. Though the numerous artists encompassed by this label had widely different styles, contemporary critics found several common points between them. Gorky, Pollock, de Kooning, Kline, Hofmann, Motherwell, Gottlieb, Rothko, Still, Guston, and others were an American painters associated with the
abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of th ...
movement and in most cases
Action painting Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical a ...
(as seen in Kline's ''Painting Number 2'', 1954); as part of the New York School in the 1940s and 1950s. Many first generation abstract expressionists were influenced both by the
Cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
s' works (which they knew from photographs in art reviews and by seeing the works at the 291 Gallery or the Armory Show), by the European
Surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...
s, and by
Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
,
Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , , ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona ...
and
Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prim ...
as well as the Americans
Milton Avery Milton Clark Avery (March 7, 1885 – January 3, 1965Haskell, B. (2003). "Avery, Milton". Grove Art Online.) was an American modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City. He was the husba ...
,
John D. Graham John D. Graham (December 27, 1886, Kyiv, Ukraine – June 27, 1961, London, England) was a Ukrainian–born American modernist and figurative painter, art collector, and a mentor of modernist artists in New York City. Born Ivan Gratianovitch ...
, and
Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...
. Most of them abandoned formal composition and representation of real objects. Often the abstract expressionists decided to try instinctual, intuitive, spontaneous arrangements of space, line, shape and color. Abstract Expressionism can be characterized by two major elements: the large size of the canvases used (partially inspired by Mexican frescoes and the works they made for the WPA in the 1930s), and the strong and unusual use of brushstrokes and experimental paint application with a new understanding of process.


Color Field painting

The emphasis and intensification of color and large open expanses of surface were two of the principles applied to the movement called Color Field painting. Ad Reinhardt, Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still and Barnett Newman were categorized as such. Another movement was called
Action Painting Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical a ...
, characterized by spontaneous reaction, powerful brushstrokes, dripped and splashed paint and the strong physical movements used in the production of a painting. Jackson Pollock is an example of an Action Painter: his ''creative process'', incorporating thrown and dripped paint from a stick or poured directly from the can, revolutionized painting methods.
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
famously said about Pollock "he broke the ice for the rest of us." Ironically Pollock's large repetitious expanses of linear fields are characteristic of Color Field painting as well, as
art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogu ...
Michael Fried wrote in his essay for the catalog of ''Three American painters:
Kenneth Noland Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was though ...
,
Jules Olitski Jevel Demikovski (March 27, 1922 – February 4, 2007), known professionally as Jules Olitski, was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. Early life Olitski was born Jevel Demikovsky in Snovsk, in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( ...
,
Frank Stella Frank Philip Stella (born May 12, 1936) is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. Stella lives and works in New York City. Biography Frank Stella was born in Ma ...
'' at the Fogg Art Museum in 1965. Despite the disagreements between art critics, Abstract Expressionism marks a turning-point in the history of American art: the 1940s and 1950s saw international attention shift from European (Parisian) art, to American (New York) art. Color field painting continued as a movement in the 1960s, as Morris Louis,
Jules Olitski Jevel Demikovski (March 27, 1922 – February 4, 2007), known professionally as Jules Olitski, was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. Early life Olitski was born Jevel Demikovsky in Snovsk, in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( ...
,
Kenneth Noland Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was though ...
, Gene Davis,
Helen Frankenthaler Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...
, and others sought to make paintings which would eliminate superfluous rhetoric with repetition, stripes and large, flat areas of color.


After abstract expressionism

During the 1950s abstract painting in America evolved into movements such as Neo-Dada, Post painterly abstraction,
Op Art Op art, short for optical art, is a style of visual art that uses optical illusions. Op artworks are abstract, with many better-known pieces created in black and white. Typically, they give the viewer the impression of movement, hidden image ...
, hard-edge painting, Minimal art, Shaped canvas painting,
Lyrical Abstraction Lyrical abstraction is either of two related but distinct trends in Post-war Modernist painting: ''European Abstraction Lyrique'' born in Paris, the French art critic Jean José Marchand being credited with coining its name in 1947, considered ...
, and the continuation of
Abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
. As a response to the tendency toward abstraction imagery emerged through various new movements like Pop Art, the
Bay Area Figurative Movement The Bay Area Figurative Movement (also known as the Bay Area Figurative School, Bay Area Figurative Art, Bay Area Figuration, and similar variations) was a mid-20th Century art movement made up of a group of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area w ...
and later in the 1970s
Neo-expressionism Neo-expressionism is a style of late modernist or early-postmodern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called ''Transavantgarde'', '' Junge Wilde'' or ''Neue Wilden'' ('The new wild ones'; 'Ne ...
. Lyrical Abstraction along with the
Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
movement and
Postminimalism Postminimalism is an art term coined (as post-minimalism) by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971Chilvers, Ian and Glaves-Smith, John, ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art'', second edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. ...
(a term first coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in the pages of ''
Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably ...
'' in 1969)''Movers and Shakers, New York'', "Leaving C&M", by Sarah Douglas, Art+Auction, March 2007, V.XXXNo7. sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting and Minimalism by focusing on process, new materials and new ways of expression. Postminimalism often incorporating industrial materials, raw materials, fabrications, found objects, installation, serial repetition, and often with references to
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...
and Surrealism is best exemplified in the sculptures of Eva Hesse. Lyrical Abstraction,
Conceptual Art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called ins ...
, Postminimalism, Earth Art,
Video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) sy ...
,
Performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
,
Installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...
, along with the continuation of Fluxus, Abstract Expressionism, Color Field Painting, Hard-edge painting, Minimal Art, Op art, Pop Art,
Photorealism Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can be ...
and New Realism extended the boundaries of
Contemporary Art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic ...
in the mid-1960s through the 1970s. Lyrical Abstraction shares similarities with Color Field Painting and Abstract Expressionism, especially in the freewheeling usage of paint texture and surface. Direct
drawing Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayo ...
, calligraphic use of line, the effects of brushed, splattered, stained, squeegeed, poured, and splashed paint superficially resemble the effects seen in Abstract Expressionism and Color Field Painting. However the styles are markedly different.Aldrich, Larry. Young Lyrical Painters, Art in America, v.57, n6, November–December 1969, pp.104–113.Thomas B. Hess on Larry Aldrich
Retrieved June 10, 2010
During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s painters as powerful and influential as Adolph Gottlieb,
Phillip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...
, Lee Krasner,
Cy Twombly Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. (; April 25, 1928July 5, 2011) was an American painter, sculptor and photographer. He belonged to the generation of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Twombly is said to have influenced younger artists such as ...
,
Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...
,
Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related top ...
,
Richard Diebenkorn Richard Diebenkorn (April 22, 1922 – March 30, 1993) was an American painter and printmaker. His early work is associated with abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1960s he bega ...
, Josef Albers,
Elmer Bischoff Elmer Nelson Bischoff (July 9, 1916 – March 2, 1991) was a visual artist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bischoff, along with Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, was part of the post- World War II generation of artists who started as abstract p ...
,
Agnes Martin Agnes Bernice Martin (March 22, 1912 – December 16, 2004), was an American abstract painter. Her work has been defined as an "essay in discretion on inward-ness and silence". Although she is often considered or referred to as a minimalist, Mart ...
,
Al Held Al Held (October 12, 1928 – July 27, 2005) was an American Abstract expressionist painter. He was particularly well known for his large scale Hard-edge paintings. As an artist, multiple stylistic changes occurred throughout his career, howe ...
, Sam Francis,
Kenneth Noland Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was though ...
,
Jules Olitski Jevel Demikovski (March 27, 1922 – February 4, 2007), known professionally as Jules Olitski, was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. Early life Olitski was born Jevel Demikovsky in Snovsk, in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( ...
,
Ellsworth Kelly Ellsworth Kelly (May 31, 1923 – December 27, 2015) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and minimalism. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing line, c ...
, Morris Louis, Gene Davis,
Frank Stella Frank Philip Stella (born May 12, 1936) is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. Stella lives and works in New York City. Biography Frank Stella was born in Ma ...
, Joan Mitchell,
Friedel Dzubas Friedel Dzubas (April 20, 1915 in Berlin, Germany – December 10, 1994 in Auburndale, Massachusetts) was a German-born American abstract painter. Life and work Friedel Dzubas studied art in his native land before fleeing Nazi Germany in ...
, Paul Jenkins and younger artists like
Brice Marden Brice Marden (born October 15, 1938) is an American artist generally described as Minimalist, although his work may be hard to categorize. He lives and works in New York City; Tivoli, New York; Hydra (island), Hydra, Greece; and Eagles Mere, Penn ...
,
Robert Mangold Robert Mangold (born October 12, 1937) is an American minimalist artist. He is also father of film director and screenwriter James Mangold. Early life and education Mangold was born in North Tonawanda, New York. His mother, Blanche, was a d ...
,
Sam Gilliam Sam Gilliam ( ; November 30, 1933 – June 25, 2022) was an American color field painter and lyrical abstractionist artist. Gilliam was associated with the Washington Color School, a group of Washington, D.C.-area artists that developed a form ...
,
Sean Scully Sean Scully (born 30 June 1945) is an Irish-born American-based artist working as a painter, printmaker, sculptor and photographer. His work is held in museum collections worldwide and he has twice been named a Turner Prize nominee. Moving fro ...
, Elizabeth Murray,
Walter Darby Bannard Walter Darby Bannard (September 23, 1934 – October 2, 2016) was an American abstract painter and professor of art and art history at the University of Miami Early life and education Bannard was born in New Haven, Connecticut and attended Ph ...
,
Larry Zox Larry is a masculine given name in English, derived from Lawrence or Laurence. It can be a shortened form of those names. Larry may refer to the following: People Arts and entertainment * Larry D. Alexander, American artist/writer *Larry Boon ...
,
Ronnie Landfield Ronnie Landfield (born January 9, 1947) is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction (related to Postminimalism, Color Field painting, and ...
, Ronald Davis,
Dan Christensen Dan Christensen, (October 6, 1942 – January 20, 2007) was an American abstract painter He is best known for paintings that relate to Lyrical Abstraction, Color field painting, and Abstract expressionism. Christensen was born in Cozad, ...
,
Susan Rothenberg Susan Charna Rothenberg (January 20, 1945 – May 18, 2020) was an American contemporary painter, printmaker, sculptor, and draughtswoman. She became known as an artist through her iconic images of the horse, which synthesized the opposing forces ...
, Ross Bleckner, Richard Tuttle,
Julian Schnabel Julian Schnabel (born October 26, 1951) is an American painter and filmmaker. In the 1980s, he received international attention for his "plate paintings" — with broken ceramic plates set onto large-scale paintings. Since the 1990s, he has been ...
,
Peter Halley Peter Halley (born 1953) is an American artist and a central figure in the Neo-Conceptualist movement of the 1980s. Known for his Day-Glo geometric paintings, Halley is also a writer, the former publisher of '' index Magazine'', and a teacher; h ...
,
Jean-Michel Basquiat Jean-Michel Basquiat (; December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement. Basquiat first achieved fame as part of the graffiti duo SAMO, alongside ...
, Eric Fischl and dozens of others produced vital and influential paintings.


Other modern American movements

Members of the next artistic generation favored a different form of abstraction: works of mixed media. Among them were
Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...
(1925–2008) and
Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related top ...
(1930- ), who used photos, newsprint, and discarded objects in their compositions. Pop artists, such as
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
(1928–1987), Larry Rivers (1923–2002), and
Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. ...
(1923–1997), reproduced, with satiric care, everyday objects and images of American popular culture—Coca-Cola bottles, soup cans, comic strips. Realism has also been continually popular in the United States, despite modernism's impact; the realist tendency is evident in the city scenes of
Edward Hopper Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Hopper created subdued drama ...
, the rural imagery of
Andrew Wyeth Andrew Newell Wyeth ( ; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was an American visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century. In his ...
, and the illustrations of
Norman Rockwell Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of the country's culture. Rockwell is most famous for the ...
. In certain places Abstract Expressionism never caught on; for example, in Chicago, the dominant art style was grotesque, symbolic realism, as exemplified by the Chicago Imagists Cosmo Campoli (1923–1997),
Jim Nutt James T. Nutt (born November 28, 1938) is an American artist who was a founding member of the Chicago surrealist art movement known as the Chicago Imagists, or the Hairy Who. Though his work is inspired by the same pop culture that inspired ...
(1938- ), Ed Paschke (1939–2004), and Nancy Spero (1926–2009).


Contemporary art into the 21st century

At the beginning of the 21st century, contemporary art in the United States in general continues in several contiguous modes, characterized by the idea of Cultural pluralism. The "crisis" in painting and current art and current
art criticism Art criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art. Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty. A goal of art criticism is the pursuit of a rational basis for art appreciation but it is que ...
today is brought about by pluralism. There is no consensus, nor need there be, as to a representative style of the age. There is an ''anything goes'' attitude that prevails; an "everything going on" syndrome; with no firm and clear direction and yet with every lane on the artistic superhighway filled to capacity. Consequently, magnificent and important works of art continue to be made in the United States albeit in a wide variety of styles and aesthetic temperaments, the marketplace being left to judge merit. Hard-edge painting, Geometric abstraction, Appropriation,
Hyperrealism Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as ...
,
Photorealism Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can be ...
,
Expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it ra ...
,
Minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...
,
Lyrical Abstraction Lyrical abstraction is either of two related but distinct trends in Post-war Modernist painting: ''European Abstraction Lyrique'' born in Paris, the French art critic Jean José Marchand being credited with coining its name in 1947, considered ...
, Pop art, Op art, Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, Monochrome painting,
Neo-expressionism Neo-expressionism is a style of late modernist or early-postmodern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called ''Transavantgarde'', '' Junge Wilde'' or ''Neue Wilden'' ('The new wild ones'; 'Ne ...
,
Collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an Assemblage (art), assemblage of different forms, thus creat ...
, Intermedia painting, Assemblage painting,
Digital painting Digital painting is an established art medium that typically combines a computer, a graphics tablet, and software of choice. The artist uses painting and drawing with the stylus that comes with the graphics tablet to create 2D paintings wit ...
,
Postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...
painting, Neo-Dada painting, Shaped canvas painting, environmental
mural painting A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spanis ...
,
Graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...
, traditional figure painting,
Landscape painting Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent compo ...
,
Portrait painting Portrait Painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to represent a specific human subject. The term 'portrait painting' can also describe the actual painted portrait. Portraitists may create their work by commission, for public and pr ...
, are a few continuing and current directions in painting at the beginning of the 21st century.


Notable figures

A few
American artists American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
of note include:
Ansel Adams Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his Monochrome photography, black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association ...
,
John James Audubon John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin; April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was an American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictori ...
,
Milton Avery Milton Clark Avery (March 7, 1885 – January 3, 1965Haskell, B. (2003). "Avery, Milton". Grove Art Online.) was an American modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City. He was the husba ...
,
Jean-Michel Basquiat Jean-Michel Basquiat (; December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement. Basquiat first achieved fame as part of the graffiti duo SAMO, alongside ...
, Thomas Hart Benton,
Albert Bierstadt Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not ...
,
Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and hi ...
,
Mary Cassatt Mary Stevenson Cassatt (; May 22, 1844June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar De ...
,
Frederic Edwin Church Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, ...
,
Chuck Close Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very l ...
,
Thomas Cole Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history painti ...
, Robert Crumb, Edward S. Curtis,
Richard Diebenkorn Richard Diebenkorn (April 22, 1922 – March 30, 1993) was an American painter and printmaker. His early work is associated with abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1960s he bega ...
, Thomas Eakins,
Jules Feiffer Jules Ralph Feiffer (born January 26, 1929)''Comics Buyer's Guide'' #1650; February 2009; Page 107 is an American cartoonist and author, who was considered the most widely read satirist in the country. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 as North- ...
,
Lyonel Feininger Lyonel Charles Feininger (July 17, 1871January 13, 1956) was a German-American painter, and a leading exponent of Expressionism. He also worked as a caricaturist and comic strip artist. He was born and grew up in New York City, traveling to Germa ...
,
Helen Frankenthaler Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...
,
Arshile Gorky Arshile Gorky (; born Vostanik Manoug Adoian, hy, Ոստանիկ Մանուկ Ատոյեան; April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian-American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. He spent the last years of hi ...
,
Keith Haring Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his wor ...
, Marsden Hartley,
Al Hirschfeld Albert Hirschfeld (June 21, 1903 – January 20, 2003) was an American caricaturist best known for his black and white portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars. Personal life Al Hirschfeld was born in 1903 in a two-story duplex at 1313 Carr ...
,
Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...
, Winslow Homer,
Edward Hopper Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Hopper created subdued drama ...
,
Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related top ...
,
Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...
,
Jack Kirby Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg; August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994) was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He gre ...
, Franz Kline,
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
, Lee Krasner,
Dorothea Lange Dorothea Lange (born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn; May 26, 1895 – October 11, 1965) was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange' ...
,
Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. ...
, Morris Louis,
John Marin John Marin (December 23, 1870 – October 2, 1953) was an early American modernist artist. He is known for his abstract landscapes and watercolors. Biography Marin was born in Rutherford, New Jersey. His mother died nine days after his birth ...
,
Agnes Martin Agnes Bernice Martin (March 22, 1912 – December 16, 2004), was an American abstract painter. Her work has been defined as an "essay in discretion on inward-ness and silence". Although she is often considered or referred to as a minimalist, Mart ...
, Joan Mitchell, Grandma Moses,
Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of the New York School, which also inc ...
, Nampeyo,
Kenneth Noland Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was though ...
,
Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionism, abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splas ...
,
Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...
,
Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...
,
Frederic Remington Frederic Sackrider Remington (October 4, 1861 – December 26, 1909) was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in the genre of Western American Art. His works are known for depicting the Western United Sta ...
,
Norman Rockwell Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of the country's culture. Rockwell is most famous for the ...
,
Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...
,
Albert Pinkham Ryder Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, 1847 – March 28, 1917) 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 ...
,
John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...
,
Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...
, David Smith,
Frank Stella Frank Philip Stella (born May 12, 1936) is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. Stella lives and works in New York City. Biography Frank Stella was born in Ma ...
, Clyfford Still,
Gilbert Stuart Gilbert Charles Stuart ( Stewart; December 3, 1755 – July 9, 1828) was an American painter from Rhode Island Colony who is widely considered one of America's foremost portraitists. His best-known work is an unfinished portrait of George Washi ...
,
Louis Comfort Tiffany Louis Comfort Tiffany (February 18, 1848 – January 17, 1933) was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art NouveauL ...
,
Cy Twombly Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. (; April 25, 1928July 5, 2011) was an American painter, sculptor and photographer. He belonged to the generation of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Twombly is said to have influenced younger artists such as ...
,
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
,
Grant Wood Grant DeVolson Wood (February 13, 1891 February 12, 1942) was an American painter and representative of Regionalism, best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest. He is particularly well known for ''American Gothic'' (1930 ...
,
Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
, and
Andrew Wyeth Andrew Newell Wyeth ( ; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was an American visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century. In his ...
.


See also

*
Aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...
*
Architecture of United States The architecture of the United States demonstrates a broad variety of architectural styles and built forms over the country's history of over two centuries of independence and former New Spain, Spanish and Colonial history of the United States, ...
* Art education in the United States *
Cinema of the United States The cinema of the United States, consisting mainly of major film studios (also known as Hollywood) along with some independent film, has had a large effect on the global film industry since the early 20th century. The dominant style of Am ...
*
History of painting The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts and artwork created by pre-historic artists, and spans all cultures. It represents a continuous, though periodically disrupted, tradition from Antiquity. Across cultures, continents, and ...
* Ledger art * Modern art museums in the United States * Museums of American art *
National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...
* Native American museums in New York *
Photography in the United States of America The practice and appreciation of photography in the United States began in the 19th century, when various advances in the development of photography took place and after daguerreotype photography was introduced in France in 1839. The earliest comm ...
* Sculpture of the United States *
Synchromism Synchromism was an art movement founded in 1912 by American artists Stanton Macdonald-Wright (1890–1973) and Morgan Russell (1886–1953). Their abstract "synchromies," based on an approach to painting that analogized color to music, were a ...
* Timeline of Native American art history * Visual arts of Chicago * Western painting *
Australian art Australian art is any art made in or about Australia, or by Australians overseas, from prehistoric times to the present. This includes Aboriginal, Colonial, Landscape, Atelier, early-twentieth-century painters, print makers, photographers, ...
* Minimal art


References


Sources

* *Avery, Kevin J
''Late Eighteenth-Century American Drawings''
The Metropolitan Museum Of Art. 2000-2011 The Metropolitan Museum Of Art *Bernet, Claus; Nothnagle, Alan L.: Christliche Kunst aus den USA, Norderstedt 2015, . *Mayer, Lance and Myers, Gay
''American Painters on Technique: The Colonial Period to 1860''
Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2011. *Mayer, Lance and Myers, Gay
''American Painters on Technique: 1860-1945''
Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2013. *Pohl, Frances K

''A Social History of American Art.'' New York: Thames & Hudson, 2002 (pages 74–84, 118–122, 366–365, 385, 343–344, 350–351) *


External links

*
American Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art
', a fully digitized 3 volume exhibition catalog

teaching resource on history of American painting {{DEFAULTSORT:Visual Arts Of The United States Articles containing video clips