American art

American art
Country	the United States
Centuries	17th century – present

American art encompasses the visual artistic traditions of the United States from the colonial period to the present day. It reflects the nation's complex history, evolving from European-derived forms to a diverse array of movements that have often shaped global trends. Key developments include the rise of distinct landscape painting, the transformative impact of Abstract Expressionism, and the pluralistic practices of contemporary art. The story of this creative output is preserved and presented by world-renowned institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.

Colonial and early American art

The earliest forms were primarily practical and religious, created by anonymous artisans and influenced by the styles of settlers' homelands, particularly England and the Netherlands. Portraiture was the dominant fine art genre, with artists like John Singleton Copley and Gilbert Stuart capturing the likenesses of the colonial elite and founding figures such as George Washington. Folk art traditions flourished, including portraiture by Ammi Phillips and weathervanes by skilled metalworkers. In the late 18th century, the ideals of the American Revolution began to influence artistic themes, promoting republican virtue and national identity.

19th-century developments

The 19th century saw the emergence of distinctly American subjects and styles. The Hudson River School, led by Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand, championed the wilderness as a source of spiritual and national pride. Later, Winslow Homer depicted the sea and rural life with powerful realism, while Thomas Eakins pursued anatomical precision in his portraits and genre scenes. The American Civil War was documented by photographers like Mathew Brady, and the Gilded Age fostered grand public sculptures by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and opulent portraits by John Singer Sargent. Movements like Tonalism, practiced by James Abbott McNeill Whistler and George Inness, introduced a more poetic and atmospheric approach.

Modernism and the early 20th century

The 1913 Armory Show in New York City introduced European avant-garde movements such as Cubism and Fauvism to a wide audience, catalyzing American modernism. The Ashcan School, including Robert Henri and George Bellows, focused on gritty urban realism. Following World War I, Precisionism artists like Charles Sheeler and Georgia O'Keeffe depicted the streamlined forms of industry and the American Southwest. The Great Depression spurred government patronage through the Works Progress Administration, supporting social realist murals by Diego Rivera and regionalist paintings by Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton. This period also saw the flourishing of Harlem Renaissance artists like Aaron Douglas and Archibald Motley.

Post-war and contemporary art

In the late 1940s, New York School artists like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko pioneered Abstract Expressionism, shifting the global art capital from Paris to New York City. This was followed by reactions such as Pop Art, which incorporated mass culture imagery, as seen in the work of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Claes Oldenburg. The 1960s and 70s saw an explosion of movements including Minimalism (Donald Judd, Agnes Martin), Conceptual art, Feminist art (Judy Chicago), and Land art (Robert Smithson). Contemporary practice is characterized by immense diversity, with influential figures like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Kara Walker, and Kehinde Wiley working across painting, photography, installation, and video.

Major movements and styles

Beyond those already mentioned, significant movements include American Impressionism, practiced by Mary Cassatt and Childe Hassam; the Photo-Secession led by Alfred Stieglitz; and Abstract Expressionism's subsets of Action painting and Color Field painting. The Bay Area Figurative Movement challenged abstraction on the West Coast, while Neo-Expressionism gained prominence in the 1980s. Later trends include the appropriation strategies of the Pictures Generation (Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince) and the rise of identity-based and institutional critique in works by artists like Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Lorna Simpson.

Notable institutions and collections

Major museums dedicated to this heritage include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.. Important encyclopedic collections are also held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Significant venues for contemporary work include the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Higher education is supported by schools like the Rhode Island School of Design and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Category:American art